Pen Tangle
by Isada
Summary: Merlin/Emrys is awakened by five cousins on holiday and takes them to the distant future to save the next incarnations of King Arthur, Morgana, Mordred, and MUCH MORE from falling to the same tragic end that they always do.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Manon, July 3, 2015 CE

The plane finally slowed to a roll, so I stood up, done from 10 hours of hallucination-inducing, aluminum casket limbo from Atlanta to Loegria, and the jack-of-an-ass next to me fucking cleared their throat at me. My black, heavy-rimmed specs framed my eyes, so I raised an eyebrow high and clear-I'd filled and darkened it enough to use as a directional arrow if need be. 'Sorry, but I need to get to the aisle.'

'Miss-'

'It's Mx.' I may've been a tote-toting, faux thighsock-wearing girl today, but some days I was a boy in skinny jeans with a shaved head colored by chalk. I used they/them as a courtesy convenience.

'Sorry, Mx. There's nowhere to go until the light's off.'

'No, there is.' I pointed and rolled my finger back. 'The aisle. I need to stretch. Excuse me.'

They didn't budge, so I climbed over their knee bridge with the seat in front. I'm a big genderfluid-I have to be because a tiny body couldn't contain my combination of personality and slow metabolism. I lifted my leg as high as possible to avoid this dude but somehow ended half-assed on their knees.

Their face twisted and pushed out like a towel wrung until pointy. 'Would you please get the fuck off me?'

I grabbed the seat in front, sliding from half to whole ass. 'I'm going as fast as I can, but this wouldn't have happened if you'd-'

The plane jerked. I was closer to the aisle than the window with my back foot mid-air and fell across, but I caught myself. I'd been too long to grab the seat arm, so I'd grabbed my white cousin's thighs.

They couldn't help being white. Technically, both our moms were half-white, but then my aunt married this super pale guy from Taiwan who made amazing curry.

'Sorry, Anon. I just got out of a bad relationship,' said Baozhu (3, 1) with a wince/smile. 'And we're, you know, both suffering motion sickness.'

Theirs and their brother's had been severe enough to stink up the vacuum suctioned bathroom. Every time I had to go, I went all the way down to the back of the econ section so it didn't trigger sympathy vomit. Just the thought made me queasy enough to potentially forever-stank Baozhu's denim-short overalls.

'Oh god, don't remind me.'

They'd bought the overalls two years ago in Taiwan when their family visited for Chinese New Year. I remembered because they had 24-hour flight horror stories broken only by the stops in Tokyo and because they'd posted vacation pics in the middle of fucking February.

Baozhu helped me off their soft and firm thighs. I held the seat arm instead and swung one leg down the aisle. Sweet, sweet circulation.

'Sorry about the crotch dive. The fucksock next to me wouldn't let me by.'

Baoyu snickered behind Baozhu, shaking so hard his bottomless specs frotted the first semester Physics book hiding his face. Poor repressed dude had a self-issued ban on swearing, unlike his twin.

They used to be identical, but thankfully Baoyu finished transitioning before this year. The tail end of puberty hit Baozhu like a truck that made you spontaneously gain fifteen pounds and sprout D cups. The relationship might've been involved. All I had to say was that anyone who dumped you for not being another 'gold-star' lesbian was no better than a fuckboy.

'No prob. Try me after a few drinks next time.'

The cabin dinged and people exploded out of their seats all around us, including Fucksock. They bumped me from behind with one leg in mid-stretch.

I shrieked, Baozhu shrieked, and Baoyu let out a single, airhorn cackle. This time I'd fallen across my cousin, my uncle, and my aunt. My uncle offered his arm as a brace, and Baozhu pulled me up by the reinforced hem of my designer-ripped skirt without touching the faux-leather belt, bless them.

My aunt's perfectly cat-winged hazel eyes met my jet black ones in balls of lilac smoke on the way up. She grinned, flashing the distinctly long, sharp teeth that popped up in everyone in the Lear bloodline. 'Welcome to Loegria, Manon.'

As soon as I was upright, I connected to the airport wifi, and my phone nearly vibrated out my hands like a sex toy set to ludicrous cycle. Most of the messages were from my mom, sharing and critiquing everything my friends posted so I wouldn't have to trek through the histories of multiple networks. Thank god she kept the critique in the messages instead posting on their posts-I loved my mom.

I kept my head angled so I could see my cousins' feet over the top of my phone and followed them to something called 'baggage claim.' I guessed a valet service was too much to ask for but that meant they'd straight up overcharged us for leg-cramping, butt-cramming seats and two child's MREs. I'd been led to believe there'd be trail mix. I did not get trail mix.

The baggage claim turned out to be a giant version of the sushi-go-round but for suitcases and honest-to-god cardboard boxes like it existed in some nightmare universe with privatized postal service. But my zebra-striped roller popped up, and I got excited as it approached with the speed of me circa my first driver's license test and I had to take a pic.

'Baoyu, do you mind getting my suitcase?' I needed one hand to share it and the other to text back my mom. My canvas tote started digging into my shoulder, too. I shrugged it off onto our shared, metal-saving cart.

'Yeah, sure.' He dragged his beat up roller patched with duct tape onto the cart as fast as he could and ran to grab mine before it sailed away for another ring around the baggage bar, which could've used some atmospheric music.

I turned to Baozhu. 'Want to take a sterile airport pic with me?'

'I've haven't been practicing my sterile face for nothing.' They slid a hand down their plain skin face, wiping themselves down to robotica.

'Baoyu, come here quick!'

He lugged my suitcase over his and jogged over. Baozhu made flower hands under their emotionless face and Baoyu threw up two fingers with a 'Yeah!' I was right between them, so I went with a half-hearted pout and disinterested smoulder.

'Nice.' I shared it. Baoyu checked it on his phone and started messing with filters for it. Baozhu didn't reach for theirs.

I walked behind them and bent to check their carry-on backpack's mesh pockets. They hadn't brought a suitcase. I spun to face them, one hand covering my gaping mouth so I didn't breathe all over them. 'Don't tell me you forgot your phone.'

They winced/smiled and shrugged. 'You got me. Better turn me over to Loegria's TSA before I leave unclaimed baggage in the bathroom.'

Baozhu's mom pat their shoulder as she passed by from the bathroom, joining their dad at their luggage cart for a selfie. She popped finger guns while he angled the selfie-stick for max, arm-cropping attitude and did the nod.

'Dude, I'm so sorry. But don't worry. Baoyu and I have your pics covered, right?'

He looked up, pushing his specs back up his slightly curved, arrow-ish nose and closing the case. He held it out. 'Yeah, you can use my phone whenever.'

Their thick eyebrows shot up, making their big, hazelish brown eyes open bigger, and they nodded but didn't take it. 'Thanks, Anon-Gege.' They strung their nickname for me together with "big brother" (1, 5) because Baoyu had technically been born first.

I didn't have any siblings, but our moms were close, so we went to rival high schools and had covert sleepovers before any game between our schools for an all-night detail swap. We were in the same grade, too, but completely different social circles-not just me, all three of us.

I hung out with a bunch of hipsters who were collectively considered the school's unofficial LGBTQA representatives-the staff would actively seek our advice, so we set up a court for convenience and that was why they called me Sovereign Manon. Baoyu's best friends competed for valedictorian and won homecoming king and queen and were the varsity captains of basketball and baseball, track and soccer. Baozhu used to hang out with their girlfriend and her friends. It was weird thinking about how we wouldn't see each other next semester with Baoyu out-of-state and Baozhu taking a work year.

One solid hour of immigrations later, I walked past the damn counter, past my cousins calling me and pointing at the bathroom, and straight out the blue-tinted glass door for arrivals. The sun hit me like a cartoon villain's vapo-ray, causing an instant dehydration headache, and I hadn't even made it out of the shady walk.

All the films and shows portrayed Loegria as Great Britain intensified-wetter, foggier, and colder. I hadn't expected heat stroke central. Although, they also suggested it was cursed because the Loegrians let the Arthur die and the land never forgot, never forgave or some Fisher King bullshit. This, the continuation of Georgia heat with humidity straight out of devil's steam room, must've been the curse.

'Are you Manon?' The gravelly and booming voice had a thick accent I'd never associated with the U.K., so it took me a second to recognize the English.

I shaded my eyes with a hand despite my photosensitive lenses as an extra precaution and looked into the blistering light. Two sets of distinctly long, sharp teeth glowed almost radioactively under the sun. I hadn't seen the twenty-year-old Lear cousins since ever because they didn't network, so they'd probably recognized me by the same token.

'Hey, cousins. Do you mind if we take this inside?' If I didn't, either I'd sweat off my makeup or the humidity would.

The tall and broad silhouette tilted their head and uncrossed one arm to shrug. 'You're coming out anyway. Nia and me'll wait.' They must've been Enid.

Nia, the little silhouette was just two rows of teeth in a plank of shadow.

'Fine by me.'

I walked back into the airport, past my cousins calling out, 'Gimme a sec' and grabbing my tote, and straight to the unisex bathroom. Since they didn't mind waiting, I took off my cold temp makeup and reapplied my summer, sweat-proof makeup.

The Lear family had just moved to a house in the countryside, though. I didn't want to spook the locals with pastel goth, so I started over and went for a natural look. I even gave myself the gold and green leaf veins over my eyelids from this tutorial I'd watched, but it took a couple tries. Satisfied, I headed back to the lobby.

Baozhu, their mom, and their dad, occupied all three seats of a metal bench, but only because of the two skinny, personal-space-saving arms. Baoyu sat across from his twin on the bench beside theirs, talking to Nia. They stood opposite and between the benches, hands behind their back and rocking in baggy shorts and sandals. They were shorter than Baozhu, who was already short at 5'3", thinner than Baoyu, who looked like the cross-country runner that he was, and darker than me, and most of my foundation called itself something mahogany-ish.

Enid leaned on the leg they'd planted at the end of Baoyu's bench. Even kind of crouched, they were taller than my 5'10", and much broader. Their solid white t-shirt hung loose around their waist but outlined their muscular shoulders and arms. Their tan skin matched my aunt's.

Baoyu saw me first. Nia spun around on their heels, their round hazel eyes popping under minty eyeshadow and their face forming a pointy-chinned heart in a cloud of bouncy brown curls. Nia grinned, their mouth winding up at both ends, which was the only thing my mom and my aunt had in common with the Chesire cat. They ran at me with open arms.

Nia hugged me, tighter than expected. 'I thought you'd lost yourself, Manon.'

As a rule, I didn't appreciate being touched, especially by persons who didn't understand how clothes or makeup worked, but Nia seemed shockingly sincere and knew their way around makeup, so I patted their shoulder. 'Thankfully, not the case, but I appreciate the concern.'

They backed off and nodded, blinking rapidly. 'Oh, I'm Nia, she/her,' she pointed at Enid, 'and that's my sister Enid.'

Enid left bench like on cue and stalked toward us, her thick eyebrows forming a perfect V over her round, hazelish brown eyes, arrow-ish nose and furry, snarling mouth. Dark, rogue waves from her long ponytail flew out behind her.

'We're twins but not many people see the resemblance.'

Enid boomed in our direction before she got halfway across the lobby, but she spoke so quickly I only caught 'fuck' and 'you.' An arriving family with cameras, tripods, and color-coordinated suitcases, scattered to either side of her so they didn't get run down. Hopefully, they were too used to American English to catch her language.

I waited until she was close enough that I didn't have to raise my voice. Her breath smelled like ham and I had to crane my neck to look up at her at same angle I'd needed for my ex-boyfriend, so she was probably 6'3". 'Sorry, but I have trouble hearing when people talk quickly. Do you mind repeating that?'

'What. The. Fuck. Manon.' She leaned over my shoulder and whispered in my ear. 'Nia was worried sick about you. If you worry her again, I will ship your ass straight back to whatever piss-mannered American state you crawled out of.'

Tears pricked my eyes, and I let out a sob. Thank god I'd switched makeup.

Nia pushed Enid off me and gave me another straightjacket hug. 'Enid! How could you? Manon's our cousin we've never seen. What if they never want to come back now?'

The random family stared at us as they arranged their tripods. Baoyu had taken Nia's place in front of the benches, and his parents conspicuously kept their eyes on him. Baozhu stared at god knew what on the vibrant, corded carpet.

'Ugh, fine. You have my apologies. Let's go.'

I sniffed and nodded because I didn't trust my voice. Enid stalked back to the benches, walking right through the family's flash. Nia backed off again and offered me her hand. Clear nail polish with rainbow polka dots brightened her manicure. I smiled thanks and took it.

Nia and Enid played rock, paper, scissors while Baoyu and his parents loaded the bags into the bag of their decades old but polished van. Somehow it still smelled like new, faux leather. Nia won and climbed into shotgun, but it turned out to be the driver's seat. Enid took left shotgun, which didn't make sense until we got on the road had to drive in the left lane.

My aunt practiced what I guessed was Loegrian with Enid-it was definitely a foreign language but not Mandarin. I stared out the window over Baozhu's pixie cut, taking in the sun-blistered hills and weird pine forests from the safety of tinted windows. You could tell when we passed a farm because we'd drive through an invisible cloud of manure. We had to make a vomit-stop at the forty-minute mark, and thankfully got to their house twenty minutes later.

Baozhu ran out of the car to the edge of the forest that surrounded their land. I ran to the house where there had to be at least one bathroom and water for rinsing-it was more of a mansion than the countryside cottage I'd expected. I tried one of the double doors in case it wasn't locked and got lucky.

The foyer opened into a left hall, right hall, forward hall, and wooden staircases on either side that meet on the second story. It was like a real-life version of that tabletop mystery mansion. I was fucked.

Gravel crunched behind me. Nia panted but smiled through the sweat and pointed to the right. 'Second door.' Sweet, sweet indoor plumbing.

Nia guided Baozhu and I to the kitchen while the others took the bags upstairs on the elevator-the Lear family had installed it for when their wheelchaired grandparents visited, which turned out to be really useful during the move and in general. Nia spoke with Enid's same accent and speed as she explained, but I had no trouble understanding her for some reason.

Baozhu leaned on both hands and elbows on the breakfast bar and nodded encouragingly over the water Nia had poured them into a real cut glass-it was heavy as fuck. I swung my legs sitting on the smooth but textured wooden stool because I'd never get that chance again. I tried this Loegrian, sangria-flavored soda called Sangreal, and it had soft, chewy fruit bubbles inside. I couldn't focus on it, though, because I couldn't get a signal for my pre-paid international data and the router died like every other minute.

'Uh, Nia, what's the deal the router?'

Her hands froze in mid-air explanation of her parents' jobs as actuaries. She inhaled, drawing them together over her chest, and exhaled. She looked to me on her left and Baozhu on her right. 'That's the reason our land was so cheap. The electricity's always on the flux. You didn't hear it from me, but they say this property is cursed.'

I poked the endless load cycle over a white void. 'A constantly dying router is definitely a curse.'

'I knew it.' She pushed off the table, scooting her stool soundlessly over the tile. 'I should tell Enid.'

'Tell me what?' Enid boomed from the 'servant's stair' behind the 'servant's entry,' which was a doorway, not even a real door. Baoyu and his parents followed her. Despite the ac, they were sweating and whiter than normal.

'What happened to you guys?'

Baoyu's almond, hazelish brown eyes opened wide and his mouth stretched into a painful looking smile. 'Apparently the elevator sometimes dies,' He barely parted his teeth to speak, talking mostly from behind them. 'But don't worry, it comes back on after a minute of depleting air and palpable darkness. Just remember the six-person capacity before you use it.'

'Oh my god.' We were one creepy stranger away from the true events that inspired horror movies.

Enid avoided my gaze but glanced at my phone. 'There's only one place on the property with cell reception.'

I pushed back off the bar and jumped off the stool. 'Let's go.'

'It's outside a cave.'

I raised one eyebrow and lowered the other. 'Like a bear cave?' I thought she was trying to apologize for earlier, not get back at me by letting some bear maul me within an inch of my life.

'We haven't gone inside, but I think it's too hot for a bear to hibernate,' said Nia. 'I'll take you there if you'd like.'

'Baoyu, Baozhu,' said my aunt, 'you should go, too.'

'Especially while you have the light,' said my uncle. 'At night it will be too dangerous to use your phones.'

'The sun won't set until ten past twenty-two,' said Enid. Talk about daylight savings.

We packed snacks, drinks, bug spray, allergy meds, folding chairs, a beach umbrella, and, obvs, our phones. Baoyu wanted to bring his backpack to hold his textbook, so we packed everything that would fit in it. The chairs weren't heavy, so we strapped two to the back of his backpack. He almost fell over when he tried to stand but said the weight wasn't a problem. Enid wore the umbrella in its bag, which was heavy, across her back and grabbed the rest of the chairs.

Nia, claiming to be a human compass, led us out the back of the house and into the forest. I asked about the pines with tiers of branches reaching out like arms, and Enid said most of the trees here were 'Scots pines.' But every single time we passed a not-pine tree she'd point and shout 'aspen,' 'juniper,' 'oak,' and startle the shit out of us because it was so quiet.

We'd changed into pants and boots if we'd had them, and thank god I'd packed skinny jeans and ankle boots because ankle to knee-high bushes covered the ground. Baozhu hadn't changed at all, so I looked behind us. They had little red lines all over their white shins and feet but caught my leaf-veined eyes and smiled without opening their mouth to a wince.

Twenty sweaty minutes later, there was an audible buzz from the combined vibrations of our four phones. Nia and Baoyu and I laughed and high-fived. Even Enid had a smile-ish thing going on at one corner of her mouth. I looked at Baozhu, but they'd wandered toward an 'oak.'

'Baozhu, not there!' Nia yelped.

They spun around but teetered backward, eyes and mouth wide, arms windmilling. Baoyu ran to them. Sprinted. Baozhu steadied, but Baoyu didn't stop. He skidded past them and dropped out of sight with a shriek.

Everyone shrieked. Baozhu dropped to their knees. Nia, Enid, and I ran.

'I'm fine,' Baoyu yelled from inside the dirt and rock cave hidden behind a ridge and its bushes. He shrugged off his backpack, climbed off his butt, and dusted off his cargo pants. 'It's kind of nice and cool down here.'

'Gimme a sec and I'll melt down the slope,' said Baozhu. They walked down the slope without any trouble. Nia, Enid, and I followed them. It really was nice and cool and shady. There was even a back and forth breeze.

I checked my phone. 'Holy shit.'

Enid pulled her phone out of her cargos. Nia put both hands on her sister's muscled forearm and hopped up and down to see. 'I didn't know the cave was so phone-friendly.'

No kidding. 'Baoyu, can I see your phone?'

'Yeah, sure.'

He'd planned to study from a book, so he didn't need to worry about conserving his battery. I turned on his flashlight and walked further into the cave. Thankfully, its tunnel was spacey instead of narrow and squeezy, but my cousins followed behind me.

The tunnel narrowed a little as we walked. I thought there'd be another opening because of the breeze, but the tunnel just stopped with a giant, bulgy stone wall in a wider and rounder space. I leaned against it.

My arm was sore from holding up the phone. 'Do you mind holding this for a sec?'

I passed Baoyu's phone back to him, light down.

'There's something on the ground,' said Baozhu.

As I massaged my arm, Baoyu swept the light across the dirt and stone cave floor. Our steps had cleared some of the dirt over carved lines and curve in the stone. He and Nia crouched and brushed the dirt off the carvings with their bare hands.

'Could you help us, Enid?' asked Nia.

'Fine.' She squatted and put one hand on the curve. She dragged her hand in a crouched run, dirt flying out behind her and making poofy clouds. Everyone coughed.

Enid held her phone flashlight from as high as she could reach. She'd uncovered a perfect circle with a total of five angles inside it. Nia and Baoyu dusted off the rest, revealing a five-pointed star.

Nia hopped to her feet in a cloud of dirt. She had dirt all over her, even her hair. 'Oh, it's a pentangle!'

'Pentacle,' said Baoyu, dusting himself off before he pushed off the floor.

'Isn't that what I said?'

'Whatever, it doesn't matter.'

I gave my arm a final shake. 'Let's take a selfie.'

There were five of us, so I stood on the nearest angle. Nia hopped on one across from me. Enid stepped to her twin's side, and Baoyu stood on the one across from Enid her. Baozhu stepped next to Baoyu and beside me and the wall.

'Enid, do you mind?' She had the best reach and already had her phone up.

'Say "cell reception."'

'Cell reception!' we said. The flash momentarily blinded us. Somebody groaned.

We gathered around Enid and she pulled up the photo. There was a gray blur on the wall behind me and Baozhu maybe like a bat. We turned around.

We screamed.

This massive, gray-bearded, dude as dark as Nia in gray rags and gray dreads and tattoos screamed.

We stopped. They stopped. The dude slowly raised their calloused, tattooed hands. They were empty.

They grabbed Baozhu's head.

'Get off you fucking pervert!' I screamed.

Baoyu caught his twin's flailing arm and pulled them away. We all backed away, but the dude didn't come closer. They held up their hands again and spoke slowly. In Mandarin.

We stopped.

'They said their name's Myrddin Emrys,' said Baoyu.

'Yeah. He/him,' said the guy who still could've been a pervert. 'What year is it?'

'It's 2015,' said Enid.

'F. M. L.'

'How long have you been hibernating?' asked Nia.

'Long enough. 你們可以幫我嗎?' We stared at him. Baozhu and Baoyu exchanged a glance. 'Uh, would you mind helping me?'

'Not at all,' said Nia.

'Wait-' Enid and I said.

'太棒了!'

The entire cave disappeared. Or maybe that was just us.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Baoyu, ?

Mr. E somehow appeared in the center of the now luminescent pentacle, sitting without having taken a visible step. The pentacle spun and expanded until the five of us stood over it again. It reversed direction and shrunk, yanking us back toward Mr. E. We screamed and stumbled onto the angles of the stars without crossing into Mr. E's personal space.

Maybe the cave had been full of Mr. E's hallucinogenic inhalants. I'd had some bad trips but none like this. I couldn't see the cave, only a sphere of black and white blurs centered over the pentacle. Mr. E's hair and beard were retracting back into his body and he was shrinking. Everyone was screaming: Anon and Enid at Mr. E, Nia with a smile and hands in the air, Azhu silently and staring at the center of the pentacle. Fortunately, everyone's head angles prevented them from seeing me cry.

I buried my face in my elbow, seemingly wiping my nose but actually wiping my eyes. I tried to step back, but my feet stuck to the edge of the star. I buried my face again.

I couldn't focus on doing, so I focused on the others. I closed my eyes, blocking out Mr. E's diminishing and the weird sphere and the pentacle. I parsed single words out of the noisy jumble of voices: 'fuck,' 'you,' 'what.'

Fine, fine, everything was fine.

I opened my eyes. Nothing had changed since I'd closed them. This was definitely worse than when I lost count of how much Adderall I'd taken during sophomore end-of-the-year exams, but not as bad as when my friends and I tried relaxing between AP exams with pot pizza that somehow delayed the effects, so we kept eating and ended up hallucinating all night. I didn't know if I'd ever had sex or not because none of us talked about it.

Mr. E held up his hands. The glassy curves of his tattoos reflected the pentacle's luminescence. He kept them up until everyone quieted down.

'Sorry, I know you must be like, WTF. But it's hard to multitask while driving.' He spoke in the lazy way that my family did at home, careless about what language we used. Although, none of us cringingly abused txt.

I had this irrational suspicion that he'd based his speech patterns off whatever was in my twin's head when he touched them, and the only way to end the embarrassment was to get through this as fast as possible, so I didn't bother translating. 'Where are you taking us?'

'To the next Arthurian cycle. You know King Arthur, right? Last time, I totes failed and everybody died.'

'What'd he say?' asked Enid.

'He's taking us to see King Arthur.'

My cousins exchanged eyebrow-raised glances: Anon with hands on their hips, Enid with arms crossed, Nia with a head tilt. Azhu had also crossed their arms but only to hug themself.

Mr. E never stopped talking. '-it's kinda my sworn duty to keep the ancestral lands from getting cursed. I've got another chance once everyone reincarnates, though.'

'Yeah, sure. So what are we supposed to do?'

Mr. E opened his mouth, but for the first time, no words came out. He rested the side of one entire hand against his broad nose and now beardless mouth. His brilliant white teeth were long and sharp enough to suggest we were more closely related than most Loegrians.

Historically, the Loegrian Peninsula had always been isolated with a single indigenous tribe due to the Red Teeth, coastal cliffs so called not for color but the annual tithe of shipwrecks, and the Dog's Back, the belt of treacherous marshland that connected it to the rest of northern Britain. Shipwrecks and strandings were the primary source of new genetic material, the most significant in early history being the stranding of an entire Roman legion comprised primarily of citizens from African nations.

Mr. E clapped his hands together with an 'oh, oh, oh!' and closed his crystalline black eyes. A sharp bolt of heat shot straight through the soles of my rainboots into my nasal cavity. I yelped and blinked back tears. It burned as bad as wasabi but quickly dispersed as warmth throughout my body. I buried my face for my nose this time.

Anon and Enid spouted all the fucks. For me, it wasn't just about the pain. I had the horrible, mouth-desiccating, gut-pitting suspicion that Mr. E wasn't high. That none of us were high. That against the odds, Mr. E hadn't been named after Merlin. He was Merlin.

'I split my MP between the six of us-don't thank me yet. I put a hard nix on friendly fire, so if you try an AOE you'll just be embarrassing yourself. Same goes for any damaging spell.'

'I hate to say it but, given the evidence, there's a significant chance he's Merlin. He just gave us magic so we can help him.'

'How do we use it?' asked Nia. Good question, but there was no stopping Mr. E.

'-all we have to do is make sure certain VIPs don't kill each other or discover each other in compromising positions. So, I'm assigning each of you one person to babysit. Ok?' He stopped of his own accord.

I translated everything I'd caught, semantically rather than word-for-word. Things might've gotten ugly if everyone knew he considered us magic babysitters. I called us 'guardians.'

Nia was the first to speak. 'How do we use the magic, Mr. E?'

He grinned, lips winding into tight curls at both ends, and shrugged. 'The key is in accepting your assignment.'

'I accept! Can I have the magic now, please?' She held out one palm, perfectly parallel to the pentacle that trapped our feet in place.

Mr. E stood, his completely bald head reflecting the pentacle's luminescence in shiny, rainbow patches. His face was shiny too, and pimples dotted his wide, prominent cheeks. He walked up to Nia and let his thinned hand hover less than an inch over hers. 'You're babysitting Mordred's reincarnation. Make sure they don't discover Lancelot and Guinevere and keep them from killing Arthur.'

I gave her the glorified translation.

'I accept.'

A jet of wind centered under Nia shot up from the pentacle. She shrieked and giggled, throwing her arms wide. The jet stopped as suddenly as it started. Nia, still grinning, opened her eyes. The pupil hadn't dilated. Somehow, the iris had enlarged and the pupil stretched, tapering at the top and bottom.

She stared at her hands and turned them over at eye level.'I know...but it's too dangerous to use magic in this nowhere.'

Enid held out her palm, still frowning with both mouth and eyebrows. 'Alright. Let's have it.'

'You're babysitting Agravaine's reincarnation. Make sure they don't discover Morgause and Lamorak and fall in with Mordred.'

'I accept.' The jet of wind blew off Enid's ponytail holder. It hit the blurs on the surface of the sphere and vanished without a sound. She grabbed her hair with a large fist. Then she sighed and released it. 'Ah, fuck. I know and I don't where's it gone.'

Her eyes had changed as well.

Anon and I shared a glance. Enid didn't have the patience for tact, much less a lie. We held out our palms. Mr. E gave Anon Morgause's reincarnation, to prevent from sleeping with Lamorak, and I got Lancelot, to prevent from sleeping with Guinevere.

Azhu held out one hand, keeping the wrapped around their arm. Their mouth smiled but their eyes winced.

It took all my concentration to keep my face from a tell-tale cringe. I knew from Mr. E's ancestral magic that it couldn't tell my twin that I'd replaced their depression meds with sugar tabs every time I'd needed the meds this past semester. My palms broke into a sweat and my mouth dried up anyway.

The magic came with a direct help and troubleshooting line to the voices of Mr. E's, and most likely our, ancestors. As soon as a question or concern occurred, they responded instantaneously but only pertaining to magic. They didn't have any spare wisdom or guidance to dispense.

'You're babysitting Arthur's reincarnation. Make sure they don't die.'

'Seniors are half-price, but I charge double for adults,' they said in Mandarin.

The physically teenaged Mr. E threw back his head and cackled like I did when I was high. The ancestors had marked him as the guardian of their chosen one, Arthur, by causing him to age backward. Mr. E had sacrificed his life-force to teleport us through time and space. Which meant he didn't have enough to send us back.

I wiped my palms on my cargoes, but they kept sweating. My eyes drifted to the blurring passage of time and space. I hacked acidic air first in a throat-stinging spray. I doubled over and vomited. The sphere of blurs whisked it away and kept rolling.

Still bent, I held my hands up to head level. 'I'm fine.' I raised my head and Azhu met my eyes. They gave their head a miniscule shake. I dry-heaved.

My twin couldn't know. The ancestors said so, and I'd taken extra, shame-fueled care. My friends had showed me where to order placebos that looked exactly like generic prescription meds. I didn't want their treatment to fail. Mom and dad just needed one less kid to worry about.

Fine, fine, everything was fine.

'Wait. Who are you responsible for?' asked Enid. Good question. Anon nodded.

'Guinevere's reincarnation,' said Mr. E, completely straight-faced. Maybe he wouldn't get kicked in the teeth by his hormones as a side-effect of instant reverse puberty.

According to the ancestors, we'd have no trouble recognizing our respective charges. Cyclic reincarnations were rare because they had such a low entropy tolerance compared to average reincarnations. As a result, the new order preserved most of the old order in echoes, but this also caused the cycles to be difficult to break.

'You never reincarnated-' Mr. E never let me finish.

'Someone or many someones took my cues, but I'm linked to the chosen one until I die. So are the five of you while you've got my MP. Try not to die, LOL. But seriously.'

As I translated, the blurs on the surface of the sphere crystallized. The building next to building next to building suggested 'city' despite being too squat and convex for skyscrapers. Leafy green plants ran up the buildings in thick, whorl patterns that left gaps for vivid paint jobs and circular windows. Lines of trees from the sidewalks shaded and partially concealed a wire mesh canopy above deep, track-lined roads. There weren't any traffic lights, and our pentacle overlaid four sets of tracks at the center of an intersection. We'd stopped traffic in all directions. None of the cars, ranging from the size of a large van to a tour bus and all shaped like aerodynamic train heads packaged in ads, honked their horns or blasted their lights at us.

'There's no way the future's this polite,' said Anon.

'I'm betting robots. It's always robots,' said Azhu. I had to agree. Any society that could safely use maglev tracks in the streets seemed likely to have mastered robotics.

The wire canopy opened above us, and two masked individuals in completely concealing, aubergine uniforms jumped down without wires. Their heavy, dark red combat boots resounded against the tracks, but they rose from their crouched landings unphased. The probability of robots seemed more and more likely.

Their badges, purple with a minimalist, two-headed eagle, read Central Logres Police across a silver stripe at the top, but they spoke in a completely unintelligible mixture of Loegrian and what must have been Future English. The ancestors said only skin-to-skin contact could break the language barrier. I wondered how that worked on robots. Maybe they had to be at least androids or cyborgs. The ancestors apparently had no reference for any of those terms.

Mr. E held up his hands and spoke slowly in his era's Loegrian. The police officers turned their dark gold, minimalist eagle masks toward each other. My mouth dried at the possibility that the 'masks' could be robotic heads.

One of the officers held up their gloved palm toward us. Maybe that was a universal wait signal. A massive gold blur dropped in from the opening in the wire canopy. It had a pointed muzzle and ears like a wolf, but its fur, short everywhere except for a wide stripe down the back and through the tail, was dark gold. It was also as tall as a horse, taller than the 6'0" officers, and as long as a small car.

'OmGMO,' said Azhu.

Without looking away from the strangers in front of us, Mr. E turned one palm in my twin's direction. They high-fived him, similarly transfixed.

'Puppy!' said Nia, clasping her hands with little hops.

The canine of unusual size sat down across the tracks. The officer who'd signaled us to wait climbed on. They held up three fingers and patted its back behind them.

Nia held out both arms and rushed forward, Enid following. Nia rubbed her face and arms in its fur before getting on and grabbing the fur in both hands like the officer. Enid sat behind her. 'Let's go, Emrys.'

Mr. E emitted a strained chuckle but eased over and onto the canine. A little shriek escaped him as it stood up. He let go of its fur and wrapped his arms under Enid's chest. She turned her head over her shoulder and spoke too softly to hear, but her mouth snarled and her thick eyebrows met in razor-edged V.

The mounted officer waved at us. The canine crouched and leaped off the tracks. Mr. E's screams rapidly passed out of hearing.

Anon, Azhu, and I got on the next officer's canine. Due to our proximity to the police officer, the ancestors identified them as Gaheris' reincarnation. Officer G spurred the canine with their heels and it leaped. I wound my fingers into its long fur and squeezed tighter with my knees.

The canopy's wire mesh didn't deform under our weight. It must've been made from a material exclusive to the future. Trees and canopies appeared to cover the entire lengths of the roads, so we ran toward our destination through the treetops, the first canine leading the way as a little golden blur.

I couldn't comfortably rest my head because Azhu, who sat in front of me, was seven inches shorter than my 5'10". I stared at the city's hilly skyline instead. Every single building had the same squat height and convexity if not the same length and decor. This, along with the brown line at the horizon but crystalline blue sky overhead, suggested that anything old had either been destroyed or abandoned. I wondered how they kept the pollution outside the city. The ancestors said magic, an environmental protection spell cast by an inhuman entity. Maybe that was their word for robot.

The canine jumped off the canopy and onto grassy hill with a thick band of trees that wound all the way up to the leafy green whorls on the long face of the Central Logres Police Station. Gray and lavender gravel crunched under its paws as it walked up the path along the treeline. It stopped and sat directly in front of the convex, glass doors of a rounded glass tunnel. The single, thick stripe of paint on either side of the tunnel read Decontamination Entrance.

We followed Officer G inside. A cool, bluish mist with a mild, mint toothpaste scent wafted toward the four of us from all sides. Officer G kept walking. The end of the tunnel opened into a white and tan and bluish-green-schemed waiting room.

The other officer stood in front of a tan-painted metal door on the opposite side of the room. They nodded at our entrance. Nia laid across a bluish-green loveseat, her bare feet propped on an arm. She waved and continued to chat about dogs with Mr. E, who sat on and leaned back with his hands on the white stone coffee table across from her. Enid stood behind the loveseat and leaned her folded arms on its back ridge. She briefly acknowledged us with her eyes but turned them back to the officers, both now in front of the tan door.

Anon, Azhu, and I took the three seats of the bluish-green couch behind Mr. E. Anon pulled out their phone, but it didn't detect any wifi. They rolled their eyes and sighed. 'What kind of backwards-ass future isn't backwards compatible?'

'Maybe they've got cybernetic implants.' Neither of the officers had used any visible devices. Although, they wouldn't need to if they were robots.

Anon raised an eyebrow. 'I'm still pretty sure wifi over data would be cheaper for an entire fucking police station.' Good point.

The tan door slid noiselessly up into the high wall, and the officers snapped to attention on either side of the opening. The entrant looked like a human in a long, black, sleeveless hemp robe and leggings except for their luminescence. All humans bioluminesced but none visibly.

Mr. E pushed off the table but teetered on his feet. Nia sat up and grabbed at a flailing arm. She missed. He stumbled and rolled backward across the marble, landing on his butt with a thump. His shiny bald head whacked my knees. I yelped.

Azhu got up and helped him to his feet. 'You look like you've seen an ex.'

'Nope,' his voice cracked, 'just Morgan le Fay.'

Morgan's reincarnation giggled behind a plump, reddish-brown hand, but their fingers splayed, so it hid nothing. They approached, flanked by Officer G and the other, winding a long strand of silver-streaked, gold hair around a finger. 'Myrddin. How suitable an appearance for thee,' they said slowly in heavily accented English.

According to the ancestors, Morgan's powerful magic caused them to experience aberrant reincarnations that preserved their memories if not their magic. Although, Mr. E's painfully stretched grin and smellable sweat suggested they were dangerous with or without it.

Their green eyes swept over us from under smoky copper monolids. Their glow extended to their teeth, giving them a radioactive grin between their glittering copper lipstick. 'Follow me. I shall inquire of you, individually and summarily.'

The split tails of their robe fluttered behind them. We walked between Officer G and the other, Gareth's reincarnation. I knew from Brit Lit that they'd been brothers in Arthur's time. Gaheris may or may not have murdered his mother: some attributed it to an older brother, Agravaine.

I stopped. Azhu bumped into me. 'Sorry,' I said.

Mr. E suspected Agravaine's reincarnation, Enid's charge. He'd arranged for my college sophomore cousin to stop a murderer. It left my mouth dry and my gut pitted. We may've had magic, but we were nowhere near prepared to handle Mr. E's problems and negotiate with murderous criminals. And if we killed anyone, we'd probably incur post-traumatic stress. I buried my face in my elbow.

'Big Brother, is everything okay?' Azhu asked softly in Mandarin.

'You know it isn't.'

'I guess we're keeping that to ourselves.' They didn't say again. They didn't have to.

We stopped at the first door in the white-walled, tan-tiled hall. Morgan's reincarnation asked Azhu to enter the room and wait. All six of us had to enter a room on either side of the hall. I was the last.

I didn't expect a floor-to-ceiling window wall, bluish-green sofa and armchair, and all the leafy green plants in tan clay pots. The room did have a table, but it was a smaller version of the lobby's coffee table. I looked back. The reincarnation's smile hadn't moved. Officer Gareth nodded. Officer G closed the wooden door between us.

I laid down on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. I don't know why I'd expected to see fluorescent lights after the shock of the interrogation room's atypical interior design. What were probably genetically modified vines stretched in swirls inside a transparent layer of ceiling panel against the white panels, providing 'natural' lighting and texture. I followed the whirling patterns with my eyes as I waited.

I woke and sat up at the snick of boots on soft tile. Morgan's reincarnation sat on the edge of the armchair, leaning their elbows on their soft knees and holding out their palms. 'Lay thy hands upon mine that we might speak at ease.'

Their soft, glowing palms had the perfect moisture balance. Touching them caused the ancestors to offer a list of functions, the first being 'ignore.' The list was too long to scroll through, but as soon as I thought of acquiring Morgan's reincarnation's language, a single spell replaced the list: a semantic-based translation function that accepted one or more downloaded language inputs and could be activated or deactivated with a thought.

Mr. E must have selected 'All languages' from my twin. Morgan's reincarnation knew thirty different languages without counting their era-specific iterations. I only selected the latest versions of English and Loegrian. The police officers had mixed those attempting to address us, strangers, so I probably wouldn't get any odd looks, unlike Mr. E and his English-Mandarin-txt amalgamation. If I needed more, I just had to find an excuse to brush against the reincarnation again.

I rested my hands, hot from the reincarnation's unusual heat, on my knees and activated the translator. 'Does this sound normal to you?'

'Perfectly.' Their copper smile's permanence detracted from the reassurance.

I rubbed my palms on my knees in little circles so it wouldn't look like I was abrading the memory of our contact.

'I'm Counselor Morrow, she/her.'

'He Baoyu, he/him.' I raised my hand before she continued. She nodded. 'Why is Myrddin afraid of you?'

'He suspected, correctly, that I've taken his place. I served as Alter's counselor and now as Mauve's.' Counselor M leaned back into the armchair, crossing her thick legs. Her robe parted around a soft knee and calf.

It took all my concentration not to shake my head clear. I couldn't look down and I couldn't look at her smile. I stared at the braided, gold and silver bun peeking over her head instead. 'Is 'counselor' the job title for a mage?'

She threw a barely concealing hand over her giggling. 'Present technology is advanced enough that some of its functions might appear magical. Very few request and survive the full implantation process, though.'

Those who did, like Counselor M, were called psibers, short for psion cybernetically-induced. The surgery's low survival rate wasn't even the main deterrent. Something called Mother Lake was the sole manufacturer of cybernetics in all of Loegria, and the custom-fitted tech came with a contractual obligation to defend the now sovereign country.

'Your charge, Sovereign Consort Gingival, is a psiber. But you can address them as Gigi but never Gin.'

I looked at her face without thinking to see if that had been a joke and came away empty.

Counselor M retrieved a half-inch, dark copper orb from a roomy waist pocket on her robe. She breathed a single word, 'log,' on the orb, and it levitated off her palm to the side of her head at eye-level.

'Bioelectric-mag levitation?'

'The latest from Mother Lake.'

The orb was called a log. It had all the functions of my phone and more, like VR environment projection, which still had to be access through implanted tech, and a 3D GUI for psionics.

'Some people use them to record their entire lives, but I'm only going to log our official interview for Sovereign Mauve. Are you ready?'

'One last question: why are you helping us?'

'There isn't magic anymore. That's the curse. Myrddin and now you five are the last mages in the entire world.' Fair enough.

Hardwiring psionics probably limited its uses to unalterable functions. According to the ancestors, magic was infinitely more flexible and spells could be altered at any point in the casting process, although tinkering wasn't recommended for new users. And, if we brought magic back, maybe she'd let us use some of her lifespan to get home.

I raised my hand one last time. 'Do the logs use wifi?'

'One of your friends asked me something very similar. In short, the wi is true but the fi had to be remade for security and speed.'

With no more pressing questions, she began Counselor's Log, date 3110/07/03. The interview was almost identical to the immigrations questionnaire that the flight attendants had passed out en route to Loegria. Fifteen minutes later, she deactivated the log with 'sleep' and returned it to her pocket.

I followed her and one of the police officers back to the lobby. The other police officer and everyone but Azhu was present. Instead of heading back into the hall for Azhu's interview, Counselor Morrow walked to the group around and on the coffee table.

'I've messaged your charges about their new companions, but the guardianship can wait until tomorrow. I'll bring you to the Sovereign Court. You're welcome to food, lodging, and other basic amenities there until the end of your stay.'

'What about my twin?'

'They left.'

The acid in my gut could've burned a hole through the floor's shiny tan tiles.

'Okay, then do you mind using your,' Anon typed in the air with one hand, 'super future tech to find them?'

'I tried, but the magic makes them impossible to track.'

Mr. E laid a gangly arm across my shoulders. 'Don't worry. Arthur used to get moody and go off on his own all the time. Usually into battle, but your twin seems far better adjusted.'

Fine, fine, everything was fine.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Baozhu, July 3, 3110 CE

Officer G watched as I rolled over the back of the loveseat onto the cushions. It was their job, but I might as well give them a show while they had no one else to watch. People interacting were interesting. One person was like a face in a box-too creepy to watch comfortably.

I held my legs straight up to the ceiling, pretending to stand on it. The ancestors said they had an app for that. They might've been formless voices who couldn't talk about anything except magic, but I hadn't had this immediacy in a long time. They were my favorite part about being kidnapped.

I gave my head a little shake. Mr. E had kidnapped us. Sure, I'd accepted his magic, but only because I didn't want to be the one who found out what happened if you didn't. I'd signed under duress-pretty sure that nulled and voided our contract.

I checked out the ancestors' app and floated feet first to the tiles holding the vines of light. Officer G took a couple steps away from the door. I smiled at them and twirled-bad idea. Being upside down and spinning made me wanna puke.

I had to get upright, but I didn't want to get down. Felt a sudden kinship with all the demon-possessed characters who went safety first to the ceilings. The ancestors offered to combine two temporary spells, one flight and one phasing through stuff, at no extra charge. Temp spells ate up the day's magic over time. I'd feel fatigue once my MP hit 0, signalling me to rest until the magic built up again-not a bug, a feature.

I turned slowly to face Officer G. I gave them that finger-flexing wave where your fingers did the wave and ended the temp spell keeping my feet to the ceiling.

Officer G ran at me as I fell. I cast the spell combo and phased right through the loveseat. I didn't feel anything. At least I didn't have to fake an orgasm this time. I couldn't see Officer G, so he probably couldn't see me-stealth bonus.

I had the chance to escape. Instead of popping my head out of the cushions like I'd planned, I flew down through the floor, possibly into the ground. I still couldn't see or feel. I flew in a direction hopefully away from the Police Station. I went as fast and as far as I could until the ancestors said I was at half-tank.

I floated up until I could see. The top of my head poked up above a dumpster for metal recycling. Its glass, plastic, and misc dumpster kin lined up beside it in an alley between two not-curved, brick buildings. This must've been a different side of town.

I walked out of the dumpster and ended the spell combo. My senses hit me all at once-bright light, garbage reek, searing heat. I doubled over and puked onto the pavement. The future concrete absorbed the liquid but left the smell and chunks of airline food. I held my nose and stumbled out of the alley onto the sidewalk. I skinned my knee, but the sharper sting came from the tears. Blinking massaged them away-this wasn't a safe place to let loose.

Maglev buses whooshed through the streets without any trees to hide their wire cages. Strangers in loose clothes that tapered at the calves and forearms bumped me from both directions as they hurried past. I was closer to the inside human traffic lane, so I followed the crowd like a lost cosplayer.

The ancestors said they had an app that could change my clothes to match what I felt and saw in the crowd-the catch being they'd revert to their original state in a few hours. Mr. E used to be able to make changes like this permanent, but splitting his MP between the six of us dropped its power by 1 over the sixth power of 2. I'd have taken the chance to experience a real-life magical girl transformation even if the change lasted seconds.

I kept walking, face straight, as my overall shorts and t-shirt sleeves elongated. They shifted from denim and cotton to the fine, light fabric strangers had bumped me with. My not-leather sandals grew into boots. The clothes took the outline of everyone else's, tapering the sleeves and cinching the waist with an imaginary belt. The details came last-a wide, sash-like belt, tucked v-neck, auto-lacing bootlaces. Super bummer I couldn't enjoy it.

No one looked shocked or shifty or had stopped speedwalking, but every other person had a log floating at eye-level. I couldn't erase the footage from the cloud, but I used a temp nondetection spell to keep anyone from tracking me and prevent any more photobombs-good enough.

I waited three blocks before I ducked into a public building and dropped the temp spell. The sign outside read Dog's Meat, so I thought it'd be like a hipster restaurant. The botanical but dim lighting for the booths, round tables, and long, wraparound bar suggested a pub. The drinkers and smoker-drinkers in a glass-walled section filled with colorful clouds cinched it.

Someone left their barstool, the only available seat that didn't require you to share a table with strangers. I rushed over and rested the side of my face against the bar in relief. I didn't have any money, but I could apply the same transformation on my clothes to the free crackers from the ashtray-like bowl beside my head. I just needed to see and touch whatever currency they used, but the people on either side of me already had their drinks.

The bartender walked toward me. I smiled and waved them by like I was waiting to get picked up. They rolled their eyes but let me sit.

They hadn't carded me. I jolted off my elbows, straight-backed, and looked around. I couldn't see much inside the smoking section, but roughly a quarter of the patrons looked my age or younger. Everyone here had sand or dirt all over. Their clothes were darker, heavier versions of the ones I'd copied, and many had gloves, goggles, or full-faced masks with them. They looked like they'd come straight from work in an apocalyptic wasteland. There hadn't been any deserts in my era's Loegria-talk about climate change.

The patron on my right fell off their barstool. Their clay pitcher hit the plastic tile floor. It bounced a little but didn't break and nothing spilled out. Someone in a smooth and dark, full-faced mask immediately took their place. Not someone. Arthur's reincarnation, Alter.

I spun around and hopped off my stool. No fucking way I was getting roped back into my kidnapper's schemes. I speed-walked right out the door. I'd swap my magical counterfeit money for dinner elsewhere, thanks very much.

Halfway down the block, something dragged me into an alley. I opened my mouth to scream. It shoved me against a brick wall. The air whooshed out of my lungs with a whispered squeak. Whatever it was felt like a thousand elbows digging into my whole body and pinning me a foot off the ground. A psychic rat gnawed at the base of my skull, trying to get inside-no, psionic.

The ancestors sent me a huge list of apps, but I couldn't focus long enough to check any of them. It was the formless rat thing. I could hear it biting, crunching, munching my head like apple pulp.

'How do you know who I am?'

I hadn't heard footsteps over the rat, but Alter was close enough to identify. The mask worked for their face and their voice.

'Magic.' If I'd been able to bang my head against the wall I would have. 'I mean, what? I don't know you.'

Alter's psionics drove further into my backside. The brick skinned the side of my face everywhere the two touched. My scream came out as a rusty wheeze.

'Magic-I wasn't joking. I mean, I was and I wasn't. You know?'

'Do you mean...innate psionics? You're a genetic psion?'

'Yes.' I had no idea what they were blabbering about.

The rat vanished. Alter dropped their thousand elbows. I hit the pavement ass-first. It spanked a sprinkle of tears out of me. That little squirt broke the seal. In seconds I went from snivelling to bawling into my knees.

'Hey, hey, I'm sorry. What's your name?'

'Pearl, they/them.'

'Pearl, I'm really sorry. I mistook you for a threat. This is all my fault. Is there any way I can-'

'No.' I raised my eyes over my knees.

Alter had removed their mask and crouched in front of me without getting into my space. They were dark with a conventionally attractive face, black eyes, and natural spiky hair.

I waved a hand in front of my half-face. 'This has nothing to do with you.'

They nodded. 'Are you alright? Do you need me to go?'

A new wave of tears stung my eyes. 'Please don't leave me alone right now.'

'Do you need a doctor?'

'I need a prescription.' I said it in the half-joking way I always did, but Alter took it with the brow-furrowing seriousness I was afraid to feel. Their face looked like a pyramid-their shaped eyebrows and forehead the base, their pointed chin the tip.

I couldn't get a prescription without a 'tag' because future Loegria was 'mostly communist.' Every citizen and immigrant received a job-based tag, an ID chip that, combined with a genetic reading off your body, let you receive rations of different amenities-no wonder everyone wore the same clothes. The ration amount and list of amenities varied by job. Psibers, having the most dangerous job of defending the country, could receive the best of everything.

'I'm gonna tell you the truth. If you want me to accept your apology, I need you to believe me.'

They nodded like getting a random stranger's forgiveness was actually important-not something I expected from someone who needed me to keep quiet about their whereabouts. One good deed was independent of another good deed. Either Alter was overly trusting or they had something else in mind.

'Why are you helping me?'

'I hurt you and it was wrong and I feel guilty and I want to rest my conscience.'

'And?'

Alter rolled the mask in their hands over and back. My Yeye (2, 5) and Nainai (3, 5) did the same in their dawn-rising Tai Chi group with a qi ball. 'I...like your face.'

They hadn't looked me in the eye. When they did look up, their pupils hadn't widened. None of the usual predatory dickishness I associated with that line. Tbh, pretty sure they were lying.

I bit. 'Alright. I'm not from around here. I was kidnapped and just escaped my kidnapper. A tag would be great-I'm starving-but I need to stay out of the system.'

'I could take you to the glitch who did mine.'

'What's a glitch?'

'An AI that can go in and out of the system undetected.' Robots-I knew it.

We couldn't take a 'tram' because I didn't have a tag, so Alter, they/them confirmed, walked and I floated, pretending to walk. I kept the temp nondetection spell on in case my half-assed acting didn't do it. I thanked the ancestors for the temp floating spell when we hit the first set of underpass stairs-faster than the elevator. We hit two more. I lost count of the endless blocks, but the closer we came to the edge of town, the fewer but dustier people we saw.

The dust came from the Adban, lands that had been eroded and deserted as the world lost control of the warming climate. The climate had steadied now, and they tried to fight the erosion with walls of trees, but huge sections of the world had been left too hostile for any organic life. Only solar-powered AIs thrived in places like the Adban. But some suffered 'meltdown.' Melties often exploded or applied a random function to organics or AIs that couldn't be used on either without damaging them, like lawn-mowing. Psibers were the only ones who could crush a melty from a usually safe distance.

'Why do the AI even have those functions?'

'The AI were built to make more of themselves, so the parent passes their entire program to the exact replica children.'

'And you don't get rid of all the AI because...'

Alter turned their eyes toward me but angled their face away, brow-furrowed. Their eyes suddenly widened and their narrow jaw slackened. 'You must've been held for a long time. I'm sorry.'

They stopped walking and motioned for me to follow them into a shady alley between two buildings with more broken windows than not. A spicy, moldy, rotted smell wafted from the line of dumpsters. Alter sat cross-legged with their back straight against the wall. I sat next to them curled around my knees-maybe it'd shield me from the reeking.

'I know we're on urgent business, but it's better you know about the AI before you meet Cauldron.'

'Let me guess. They're sentient.'

They weren't just sentient. They experienced emotions and dreams and aspirations. Basically, the AI were like immortal humans but stronger and faster and with hardwired pacifism, which made the melties a terrifying experience for everyone.

Alter rang the buzzer for Cauldron's Complete Tag Services on the second floor of a brick apartment. I backed up to check their windows-broken but held together by some kind of duct tape with a floral print.

The metal door buzzed open. We squeezed down the narrow, peeling-papered hall to the cagey elevator and steep staircase at the end. Too hungry and tired for this shit, I got in the elevator followed by Alter. It dipped below the floor just from our combined weight. Maybe Alter's height made them look leaner and lighter than they were. Someone had graffitied over the carrying capacity to turn the numbers and diagram into an orgy, but Alter looked unphased.

Cauldron's office was the first and only floral print door. The flowers matched the ones on the window but had been etched into the metal. The door slid up soundlessly into the wall when I stepped on the bristled 'Welcome' doormat.

Alter pulled off their mask and pointed across me to a shoe rack. You left your shoes but took a pair of plastic house slippers-the same system at my house and for all the relatives I'd visited in Taichung. Even the slippers had flowers but in permanent marker.

A grayish android in a full body suit of flower tattoos, plastic slippers, a floral print apron, and nothing else walked out from behind the wall with a tray of tea and cookies. They winked at me. 'You're just in time for the after-hours special.'

'Cauldron!' Alter hugged them from the shoulders up, staying off the tray and apron. 'You never fail to make an impression on every single person I bring you.'

Cauldron held the tray on one hand and counted off on the other. 'You, your sister, the guy your sister's hate-banging-you don't have enough friends for a significant sample size.'

Yeah, the AI just made a scathing probability joke. 'Hi, I'm Pearl, they/them. I love you. Can I help you with that?'

Their almost lipless mouth broke into a brilliant smile. 'I'm Cauldron, he/him. If you want to bang, wait till I've made your tag. And this is really no trouble.'

'Actually, I'm just hungry.' They passed me the tray.

Sex didn't do it for me-only masturbation. I was an autoerotic asexual. But, sex did a lot of things for other people that made them want to do things for me, so I couldn't complain. I'd only fucked up from offering sex out of love.

Alter and I sat on a couch with the tray between us so I didn't have to stop eating and reach all the way to the coffee table for the next cookie. Cauldron sat in front of us in an armchair with a machine the size of a walk-in closet behind him. Alter gave him the specs, but I was too hungry and tired to focus on their conversation.

I thought I heard 'Pearl' and looked up at Cauldron.

'I thought you'd gone into a sugar coma for a sec.'

'Shut up,' said Alter. 'Pearl, do you want to be part of the glitching?'

I put down the last cookie. 'Oh. Oh! Let me guess. You're saying glitches,' I opened and closed my hand like a claw, 'can borrow psionics.'

Alter nodded enthusiastically and bit their lip when they grinned. Cauldron stretched one palm toward each of us. We placed our hands on his. 'Technically, I can't use it for anything but exponentially jacking my computation rate.'

'High computing.'

Cauldron had no words but took his palm from Alter for a solemn high five. He gave it back after the smack. 'You kids need to close the circuit. My office has a very strict no-spilt-brain-juice policy.'

Alter didn't look away from Cauldron, but the skin over their cut cheekbones darkened when I took their hand. As someone who'd been misgendered, disoriented, and suffered racial microaggressions all my life, I tried to stay away from assumptions unless I felt threatened, and Alter was still a stranger. Their reaction suggested they were romantic if not sexual.

Cauldron closed his dark, deep-set eyes. Alter closed theirs. I took a deep breath and did the same. A shock like static travelled up from Cauldron's hand, popping inside me like a wheel of firecrackers unwound through my whole body. I probably screamed but I couldn't hear over the exploding. Then I couldn't hear anything.

A pressure like deep water crushed me from all sides, deeper than I'd ever swam. Every time we went to the beach, my dad warned us about the water-the push made you feel alive, the pull would kill you before you felt it. I yanked my arms in instinctively, but they didn't move. I couldn't open my eyes. I couldn't breathe against the crush. My lungs burned and their fire spread all over me.

I'd been pulled. Down and down and down. Burning, drowning.

I woke up on Cauldron's couch. Alter and the AI hurled apologies at me as they rushed over from across the room. I sat up and tossed my cookies onto the plastic floor tiles. Cauldron immediately switched to a path out of the room. Alter rubbed my back as a child-sized trashcan on wheels vacuumed and sprayed the mess. Cauldron only returned once the little robot had finished.

They hadn't expected my psionics to be incompatible with AI from a lack of cybernetic implants. I rested my head on my knees and flipped them off. I rubbed my eyes against my knees for a more intensive massage, but my tears weren't having it-destress or else.

They didn't bother me the whole time. I raised my head and took a few shuddering breaths. 'Have my life endangered earns me a psiber-tier tag, right?'

'You're officially an occupational psiber and your genetic read comes off either ear, so you don't have to look directly at scanners or touch anything.'

'I'd say thanks, but, you know, you practically killed me.'

Cauldron rolled their eyes. 'Your heart only stopped for 3.7 seconds and you never went brain dead.' Then they dropped to their knees and bowed an apology. 'Sorry, that was way too soon. Glitching temporarily alters my perception of time.'

Alter pointed at the machine behind Cauldron's armchair. 'This printer can handle pharmaceuticals. We can set up a remote session with a doctor, if you want.'

'My bedroom's soundproof.' Cauldron's thin, bleached eyebrows waggled. If I'd had any control over my stomach, I'd have puked just to chase him out of the room again.

I sat on the king-sized futon because it covered the whole floor. Cauldron's boxers, panties, bras, binders, businessware, and floral aprons hung overhead on laundry lines weaved between the plant-light ceiling tiles. An entire wall served as the display for a motion-sensitive computer, but Cauldron sized it down for me. The doctor's loading screen played soft instrumental music as koi swam in kaleidoscope-like patterns.

The music faded and the screen dissolved to the doctor sitting at their desk. They asked me about my symptoms and inspected the virtual scan of my body stored on my tag. I had to put my hands on the jelly-like wall to let them take a current scan and observe a period of brain activity. They ran it through a program that matched my patterns to the most effective drugs. The whole thing, including the wait time, took about fifteen minutes-I loved the future.

My past drugs had taken almost a month and a half to have an effect. I'd taken them religiously ever since. Maybe the new ones would pick up where the old had left off instead of knocking me back to square one.

Cauldron's printer read the prescription off my tag and printed me a month's worth of dissolving pills. I didn't have to eat, so I took the first dose before we'd left Cauldron's home and office.

Alter, back in mask, pulled a necklace holding their tag from under their robes and held it in front of the tram's scanner. It beeped and 'Welcome' popped up from the 3D display. I followed their lead almost exactly-Cauldron had strung my tag on a necklace, too.

We were the only ones on the tram. It used AI software to make the routes, so there wasn't a driver. I sat across from Alter, our seats facing each other. The tram used the same blue plant-lights as the spherical streetlamps out the window. Those floated like giant will-o-wisps in the darkness. These toned down the garish ads plastered to every hard, not-transparent surface.

'Are you hungry?' Since Alter sat directly under a lighting tile, the question came out of the blue.

My stomach growled with a force that shook my whole trunk. I had a wisecrack lined up, but I let my head drop back against the window and laughed instead. It felt as good as crying.

'My sister and Lathe live with me, and Lathe keeps the place stocked. Actually, now that you're officially a psiber...'

I jerked my head up. 'Fuck. Do I have to put down melties to keep my rations?'

Alter nodded and hunched forward, elbows resting on their knees. 'It's safer to work in groups. You could work with us, if you want. Lathe might fight you to get the kill shot every single outing, but-'

'Sold.'

We got off the tram with another tag scan. Sandstone brick apartments with boarded windows lined the far side of the tracks, regular as teeth after braces. Our side of the tracks must've gotten punched in the mouth-lots of buildings had collapsed in dusty, rubble heaps. You could see the outline of the Adban behind them unbroken by trees or buildings. I guessed they liked the convenience of living near their workplace.

Alter scanned their tag outside one of the not-completely-destroyed apartment buildings. Boards still blocked the windows to keep out debris from dust storms.

'Which floor's yours?'

The door buzzed open and Alter removed their mask as they entered. 'All of it.'

I started questioning the perks of being a psiber. Sure, they had six floors of space to themselves, but the location screamed 'good luck getting someone to fix your utilities.'

Alter grinned, biting red into their lip, and waved me inside with the same overhand motion they used in Taiwan. 'Come meet everyone.'

My stomach gurgled. We locked eyes, both of us staring from under not-quite-monolids. I shook my head.

'Sorry, kitchen first.'

I followed them through a doorway beside the stairs. They flicked on the plant-lights. Something heavy smacked against the soft floor tiles behind the kitchen bar.

'Oh, good. Pearl, come meet my sister-'

A heavyset girl taller and much darker than Alter popped up over the bar. 'Step-sister. Key, she/her. A pleasure.'

'Pearl, they/them.'

'Is what I would have been having if you hadn't barged in unannounced. Not you, Pearl. What have I told you about courtesy texts?'

'Right. Sorry. If you don't mind, we need to use the kitchen for its intended purpose.' They headed around to the mouth of the bar and froze mid-step.

'Just a sec, Alter,' said a much deeper voice. Lathe stood up a second later, coming up to Alter's nose and the top of Key's shoulder. Their blue eyes fixed on me and they smiled from half their mouth with a vibe of predatory dickishness.

I looked away from their sun-tanned face back to Key. She had splotches of acne on her fine-boned cheeks, dark brown eyes over puffy bags, and black hair in braided rows. She smiled at me, showing every distinctly long, sharp tooth.

I clutched at my suddenly aching chest. A ball of heat welled up inside me and burst out my eyes as tears.

Key marched into Alter's face. 'What'd you do to Pearl?'

'I'm just hungry.' Tbh, I might've been homesick.

She brushed past him and stopped next to me. Key was Kay's reincarnation. 'Don't let Alter turn you into a test subject.' She glared at them one last time before leaving.

Lathe followed her. They were Lancelot's. I waited until the energy from Lathe's eyes left my back to ask about Key's cryptic warning.

Alter kept their eyes on the ingredients and kitchen tools-bad sign. 'I was never much of a sovereign or a psiber. Genetics are my passion...and Key's never forgiven me for the time I pricked her finger for blood while she was asleep. We were eleven. It's been twelve years.'

That explained a lot. Alter might've liked my face, but they liked my 'psionic genes' better.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Nia, July 4, 3110 CE

The first sun woke me up alone. It never touched my face. Only Enid's. She'd fallen asleep on the wooden floor under the open window and the fan hanging in the window because she didn't want to sweat after showering.

Manon, Baoyu, and I shared the bed, not the sheets. They wrapped around Manon like many child-eating snakes. Baoyu slept straight and long on his side on the edge of the bed. I didn't know how he didn't fall off unless he hadn't moved all night.

The sun through the fan put up bars of light and shade on the wall behind me and on me. This room was spacey but didn't seem very feng shui. Maybe it had been before Enid pushed the bed out of her way. She was amazing like that, reordering space without a thought.

This space belonged to someone. I didn't know who. The Counselor gave us all rooms and showers and clothes and food. She couldn't give us safety, so we had a slumber party. I turned the water in our mugs to wine. It turned back to water before we'd gone to sleep and suddenly sober, we'd cried. Not Enid.

I floated over my bedmates to the vanity and unwrapped my hair. I loved the way it made me feel like I carried the sun in my skull. The conditioner came first, then the comb from the end with wide teeth. I counted the strokes until it was time for the fine teeth.

Someone knocked on the door. I hoped it wasn't Myrddin because we hadn't invited him. I put down the comb and walked close enough for the ancestors to name the Counselor. I had my childhood dream of having magic and it still wasn't mine. I waved my hand over the sensor.

The Counselor peeked in and nodded at me but didn't take a step. She pulled her log from the pocket of her sleeveless green robe, the same style as yesterday's. The log played a loud and wordless song.

Baoyu fell off the edge of the bed and said he was fine. Manon sat up still under their sheets like the ghost of Halloween past. Enid rolled up from her spine without her arms. I forgot she'd taken off her shirt. Maybe that was what bothered the Counselor.

She turned off the music and smiled with the Chesire's curling mouth and matte lips. 'Time to wake up, honored guests. I've arranged for you to have breakfast with your charges. It'll give you a head start on adjusting to their routines as you'll be with them at all times, sleep excepted.'

The Counselor gave us a quarter hour to get ready. Baoyu guided sleepwalking Manon out of the room with his hands on their back. The sheets fell away onto the floor behind them. Enid grabbed her shirt and followed them. Her strong hand pat my weak shoulder as she passed. This must've been my room.

I pulled out a drawer from the closet next to the vanity and inside the wall. I held one of the hemp robes against myself. It fell straight and dahlia yellow to my knees. The neck cut a deep Y until my navel with the tail held open and closed by wooden toggles and leathery laces. I took off my sleeveless nightgown and pulled the sleeveless robe over my head. My chest was flat enough that it didn't need any support.

I rummaged through the vanity for jewelry and found a pair of wide arm bands etched with a sun on one and a moon on the other. I slipped them on and they tightened themselves to fit my arms like heart-reading cuffs.

I only sat to paint my face. I painted peach catwings above a mallard green line on my eyes. I made my lips plum brown with shimmery peach accents. I rubbed peach glitter along my cheekbones with a dab of oil. I stood and kissed the mirror for good luck. I hadn't left the faintest smudge or smear.

I joined Myrddin outside on a round wooden bench. There was a shoe rack against the wall beside my door, but I wanted to feel the grass like a soft toothbrush under my feet. Trees stood over and around us in a circle, but the clear dome kept the space from being a proper courtyard. Enid would know the trees.

Manon, Baoyu, and Enid followed the Counselor toward us. Manon wore black leggings and a light, sleeveless white robe with a collar. They'd swapped their paint for a dash of natural dark spots and streaked lilac powder in their hair. Baoyu wore the same black boots, leggings, and robe that the Counselor had on the first day we met her. Enid wore loose indigo trousers and a white tunic with long, loose sleeves. The tunic needed a belt. Enid did not.

The Counselor grabbed a pair of sandals with her mind and tossed them to me. The ancestors helped me land them on my feet. It bothered the Counselor. I could tell because I'd taken a psychic reading of her when I'd taken her languages. Now she wore her under emotions on her face. I couldn't imagine what it must've been like for her to lose such a deep connection with everyone.

The Counselor led the train of sleepwalkers into the apartment's glass-walled lift. I brought up the caboose. She selected the penthouse on the third floor. The courtyard that wasn't shrank in front of us. Behind us the wall curved slowly inward, coming closer and closer as we rode higher and higher.

We saw the bodies through the lift's glass before the doors had opened. We did not wake them as we walked through the dark, their snores drowning our shoes clacking against the wooden tiles. There weren't any curtains, but the window glass itself had darkened.

The Counselor waved her hand in front of two golden doors patterned with leafless vines twisting and weaving through each other. They slid into the walls at either side, parting like curtains. They unveiled a large bed with rich red sheets and a golden headboard shaped like half a sun with the same twisted vines. There were four sleepers in the bed, three of them in blindfolds that matched the sheets.

The Counselor clapped her hands. Servants with gray green skin and fitted black uniforms walked into the bedroom from behind us with bowed heads and porcelain trays. The dark left the windows in their presence.

The sleeper without a blindfold groaned and pulled the sheets off the others to cover their face. The Counselor tutted like a schoolteacher. 'Sister, your breakfast date is here. Perhaps you could show them some decorum.'

The Counselor's sister, Morgue the reincarnation of Morgause, asked for the time, 6 AM. She swore and sat up. The sheets fell away like red moulting skin.

Morgue's dark skin was bare except for a covering of long, silver hair. She had a rounder, younger face than her sister's, which was drawn and quartered by many wrinkles. They had the same green eyes. Anyone could tell they were related.

'Get out,' said Morgue.

The servants looked at the Counselor. She smiled without using her eyes. 'No. Morgue, meet your guardian, Manon. Manon, Morgue.'

'They/them. No need to get up-I never do without a guarantee of coffee.' Manon narrowed their eyes at the Counselor. 'If there isn't coffee, you can expect a strongly worded letter to your manager.'

'I manage myself.' She turned and left, our sleepwalking train one person shorter.

We took the lift all the way back down to the green space, leaving the apartments through an ornate wire gate threaded with vines. As we walked down the curving gravel path beside the curving tree line, I asked after the bees.

The Counselor said they'd died. The yellow bees I remembered. Humans replaced them with bots before they'd gone extinct, so there hadn't been much concern. One day everyone woke up and found all the bees had become gray green. The green let them take energy from the ever-stronger sun. The gray let everyone else know that they were AI. They couldn't make honey if they'd been anything else.

The masked Officers Gare and Gander, the brothers we'd met yesterday, met us again at the bottom of the hill. They'd brought the golden puppies. I loved them though they were robots. I knew because the ancestors couldn't help me talk to them.

The Sovereign Court was only a few minutes away by puppy. It was as tall as our apartment complex, but much wider on its green plateau. A red stone stood in front of the main doors. It had the shape of a wheel twice as high as a human. Myrddin stumbled as we passed it. He kept from bruising his shoulder by phasing his arm right through it.

We took a black and mirrored lift to the basement. The doors opened to wooden directional arrows on a leafy green wall. We did not go to the swimming pool or locker rooms on the right. We passed fitness rooms on either side of the left hall until we reached a door labelled 'Martial Arts.'

A muscular, olive-skinned person in loose red shorts and nothing else bowed to a gray green servant inside a sparring ring. The person had their back to us, so we could only see their tattoo of a feminine, silver-haired angel covering themselves with their six golden wings.

'Agreeance,' called the Counselor.

Agreeance and the servant circled each other, too focused to hear outside the ring. I recognized this space. I entered it every time I sat to paint my face. My body became a canvas. A canvas couldn't hear. It lived and breathed by paint.

The Counselor called out again, uselessly. It bothered her the entire time we waited for Agreeance to fling the servant to the floor over their hip. They twisted the servant's arm straight up and back. They leaned against it with their knee until the servant cried out. Agreeance dropped the arm and stalked to their towel on the cornerpost outside the ring.

'Agreeance.'

They kept patting their ink black hair but finally tilted their head up. Their skin glowed without radiating like the Counselor's, and you could see its soft springiness. Their heart-shaped face had wider cheekbones and cleaner lines than the angel's on their back. They had a beauty mark under their left eye, the same green monolid as Morgue and the Counselor's.

Agreeance nodded. 'Auntie M. Who's this lot?'

'I see no one's checked their messages.'

Their upper lip twisted to a snarl. They reached into their shorts pocket for their log. It floated to their eye level. 'I'll just leave it on all the time, then. That make you happy?'

'Immensely. Now Nephew, come have breakfast with your guardian.' She pushed Enid forward and clapped her hands.

Servants filed into the room with porcelain trays. I wondered how they managed to hide themselves and their trays in the hall empty behind us. Maybe they'd come from under the floor tiles.

Agreeance had not stopped snarling. 'You can take your protection and shove it.'

'You need Enid. I've explained everything in the message. I'm not repeating myself.'

He vaulted over the ring's cord with one arm and stalked toward us. Everyone stepped back. Not Enid. She might've still been asleep. He stopped in front of her, three inches under her face. 'You look tough, but I've trained my entire life. If you can't take me in a fight, you stay the fuck away from me. Deal?'

Enid couldn't fight. She was a lifter who'd never taken a martial arts class. We'd taken women's self defense for a health credit at university, but the focus had been on running and getting help.

Enid frowned and crossed her arms. She walked into the ring by the stairs. Agreeance threw his towel against the plastic tiles with a wet smack. He followed her in and stalked to the other side.

'Ah, Morrow-' said Myrddin.

The Counselor held up a palm between them. 'Need I remind you this was your idea?'

He opened his mouth and shut it.

Agreeance bowed. Enid nodded a little deeper than usual. She hadn't moved her arms. Maybe she was scared. I'd never seen her scared before.

Agreeance ran at her. He grunted as magic yanked him off his feet and pinned him in the air like a wet shirt on a laundry line. He struggled, roaring and writhing uselessly.

I'd never seen Enid scared. She walked up to him. 'I saw a weight room down the hall. I'm grabbing a snack, working out, and coming back for brunch.' Enid pointed to his log. 'Ring the room whenever you're ready to accept me.'

She walked out of the ring straight to the line of servants on the wall. She lifted one lid after another. Agreeance roared behind her. The Counselor laughed on the inside.

Enid waved to me with a green banana in her hand as the Counselor led us out. We took the lift to the second floor. There were so many directional arrows that I couldn't read them all before the Counselor walked out of sight. I ran to catch up.

I walked through the first opened doors into library with trees for shelves. They grew through the wooden floor in lines on either side of the long room. At the far end was a wide, half-moon window overlooking a forest on the outside and cushioned seats and couches on the inside.

The Counselor and her train stood on a wooden circle in the middle of the room depicting a curve of white ravens in flight. Guinevere's tall, heavyset reincarnation with an androgynous face and reddish brown skin stood outside the circle. Their shoes and robes were all white and they wore their hair shaved. They clutched a leatherbound tome to their chest, open.

'Terribly sorry, Baoyu,' they said, 'but I've already eaten.'

'That's fine, Gi-Gigi. I'm not really hungry. Any chance this place has a nonfiction section?'

Gigi smiled and offered their hand. The Counselor's train had lost everyone but Myrddin and me.

'Everyone's so young. It's like a college AU,' I told them.

'That's how I kept Morgue from sleeping with Alter.'

Myrddin stopped. I bumped into him. 'Holy Grail! Mordred never reincarnated?'

The Counselor stopped but didn't turn around. 'Unfortunately, she did, but Mauve's the same age as Alter and isn't descended from them.'

'Morrow!'

She turned around. All three of us did.

A short, stocky person in bright blue boots and dark blue robes ran at us from a side door inside a tree. Their red hair stuck out behind them in braided twists. Their skin, light as Enid's, flushed. They'd painted their lips cobalt and their eyes a shimmering sky blue.

Myrddin stumbled over my ankle trying to get around me. He hit the floor with his arms. The Counselor's friend, Vivian's reincarnation, leaped over him without stopping and swept the Counselor off her feet in a hug. The Counselor laughed, exploding with affection.

Vivian's reincarnation put her down, and the Counselor took their hand. 'Myrddin, Nia, you have the pleasure of meeting the Vice Counselor and my wife, Vivid.'

The Vice Counselor looked at us, biting her pierced tongue. 'The pleasure's all mine. Afraid I can't stay and chat. I've got a censor beast waiting for me in Records.' She jerked her head toward the side door.

'What's a censor beast?' I asked.

The Vice Counselor tapped the cobalt orb in her tongue against the ridge of her teeth. 'Something very difficult to scrub off the net.'

'I'm a master of scrubbing,' said Myrddin. 'Please, let me help you.'

'But, you need to help Lance-'

He waved a hand at me. 'Later.'

The Counselor shook her head watching them leave, amused. She pat my shoulder. 'There's nothing we can do about Lathe at moment anyway.'

Six month's ago, Sovereign Alter registered as dead after a mission in the Adban Wasteland. Mauve, the succeeding Sovereign, ordered Lathe not to return to the Court until he'd found Alter, dead or alive. Lathe hadn't returned. Now no one could find him. Maybe because they'd stopped looking five months ago.

'Are you ready to meet Sovereign Mauve?'

I'd rather have stayed in the library with Baoyu and the Sovereign Consort. I didn't care for nonfiction like them. I loved fantasy most of all, the further from our world the better. That was why I wished I'd been the only one to get Myrddin's magic. It wasn't a fantasy if everyone experienced it, only work. I had to do my job.

The Sovereign's office was on the third and highest floor. A cloaked and veiled figure stood in the hall outside the office. Their almost blue glass grew darker and less clear toward the statue's core. The first arm stretched up to the plants on the ceiling. The second reached down to the black marble tiles. The Counselor and I passed on either side of the statue. Its glass curves bent our reflections toward the blue black star at its core.

A scanner with a slot sat in the white marble wall beside two black doors with the same raised face of leafless vines as Morgue's. The Counselor pulled a golden necklace from under her robe with a small, flat charm shaped like the one on a dog's collar. She placed the charm in the slot and stared into the scanner. The scanner tolled and 'Welcome' rose from its face.

The double doors slid without a sound into either wall. I jumped and pointed. 'The Round Table reincarnated!'

I hugged the smooth and cool black marble. It floated but did not spin in a thick and wide ring above the white marble floor. Narrow, half-moon armchairs sat fixed around the table, so if it ever fell, only your feet would be in danger. The seats and table couldn't bring people together with that much space, only keep them away from each other. Maybe this wasn't the Round Table.

I raised my head. A virtual computer screen hung over the hole at the table's core. I only saw the grid of its back from my position. Three people stood around a black, half-moon chair on the other side of the table. One wore the eggplant uniform and dark gold bird mask of the police officer brothers, but their badge read 'Sovereign Court Head of Security.' The one in the middle looked like Agreeance but shorter, thinner, softer, and more feminine in a dark purple robe. They'd painted their heart-shaped face with natural makeup to bring out the gold in their olive skin and kept their shoulder-length, ink black hair back with a thick silver headband. The person on their right held a thin tablet in one arm with cartoon stickers of puppies and shellfish on its back and a stylus with purple jelly grips in the other. They'd painted natural, reddish brown makeup on their face as a concealer and nothing else.

'Nia the Guardian,' the one on the right whispered to the one in the middle. Their floating log moved with them.

'Hello, Nia. I'm Sovereign Mauve, she/her. We've noted your concerns but your services aren't needed.' The Sovereign clapped her hands.

I turned around. The marble tiles in the hall popped up without a sound. Servants walked up and out of them, carrying porcelain trays. The Sovereign pointed a manicured finger at the table and the servants placed their trays on my half. They took the lids and filed out of the Sovereign's office.

'You're welcome to eat here so long as you leave immediately.' The Sovereign nodded to the Counselor. 'Thank you, Counselor. You may leave us.'

The Counselor smiled, but it bothered her. 'Good luck, Nia.'

I waited until the doors shut behind her, using metal tongs to put fruit in my porcelain bowl piece by piece. 'The Counselor didn't like that.'

'She wouldn't. My aunt hasn't been happy ever since I "skipped over" her for promotion. I don't know what plot of hers you're involved in, but I have zero tolerance for spies.'

I swore over a mouthful of blueberries that I wasn't a spy. 'It's my job to help you. Please, let me.'

The Sovereign opened one palm toward the masked Head. 'Gaunt is my guard dog.'

'Woof,' said the Head.

The Sovereign opened the other palm toward the one with the log and tablet. 'Bevel is my personal assistant.'

Bevel gave me a quick smile with closed mouth and eyes. 'They/them. It's a pleasure.'

'If you want to help me, convince me. What can you do that they can't?'

I'd read about characters having job interviews, usually in modern AUs, but I'd never had one myself. For the first time, my greatest skills, face-painting and consuming mass amounts of fictions, had nothing to say about my worth. They were useless to the Sovereign. They were useless to me.

My tongue stumbled over an apology and asked to have a moment. I couldn't find a tissue, so I dabbed my eyes with the soft top square of bread off a sandwich. I felt Enid's pity all the way from the basement.

Everything came so easily to her. Maybe because she didn't have a shred of fear to cloud her mind. Not even the ancestors had a spell that could so completely banish fear. Even my magic was useless.

'Well?' asked the Sovereign.

I started to hiccup, the bread trembling in my hands. 'I'm...a...human compass,' I sobbed into the square.

I needed another. I didn't have to peel the bread off my face to find the bottom half of the sandwich. I shook the vegetables off onto the porcelain and swapped the first slice with the second.

Boots clicked against marble as the three of them came toward me. I pulled the bread off my face. The Sovereign leaned against the table. The Head, Gawain's reincarnation, sat on it. Bevel, Bedivere's reincarnation, stood between and to the side of them, tablet and stylus at the ready.

'What do you mean?' asked the Sovereign. She spoke more softly. Maybe because she didn't have to bark at me from all the way across the table.

Back home, I meant that I always remembered where everything was. I'd learned to paint a map in my head, one I could see even in the dark. If I focused on painting while I walked, I could make a map of anywhere. Now that the ancestors were with me, they could extend my skill to map places I'd never seen.

'I can find anything.'

'Can you find people?' asked Bevel, their amber brown eyes darting toward the Sovereign. She nodded and Bevel continued. 'My friend, Key, went on an unauthorized mission to find her sibling, Alter. She never returned. I just...want to know for sure.'

'Oh, of course! I'll need something of hers.'

'Would her social profile work? She made it.'

The ancestors didn't understand what a social media profile was. 'I'm not sure, but I'll try.'

I didn't have cybernetic implants or a log, so Bevel shared their screen with the virtual screen in the middle of the table. All of Key's pictures showed the same girl, as tall as Enid and as dark as me. She'd gradually gained weight and eventually steadied at a soft, curvy figure. She'd tried makeup in the past but never recently. She always kept her hair short or braided to her skull. None of her pictures included any other person.

No wonder she'd gone after her sibling. She was so lonely. They must've been all she had. Or all she knew how to protect. Alter hadn't been in any of her pictures either.

I stared at the most recent picture, one of her standing under the full moon in a dark, dusty robe with a mask tucked under one arm. I painted it in my head for the ancestors.

My painting stared straight at me and smiled, their teeth a white smear. She turned, letting her mask drop to the floor of my mind, and walked out from under the moon. She left frozen pictures of herself behind her so I wouldn't lose her. Somewhere deep inside her, Key wanted to be found.

I closed my eyes. I followed her past colorful buildings and trees growing together to a far away place where the trees couldn't live and the buildings stood like bad teeth in a dirty mouth. One picture froze with its hand against a six-story apartment building. Key kept going into the wasteland behind the apartment. A thick cloud of gritty tan dust swallowed her. I couldn't see any farther. She wasn't dead. This was her present space.

I opened my eyes. Bevel and the Sovereign stared at me. The Head had their mask in my direction, too.

'Is it alright if I borrow your tablet?'

Bevel's jaw hung loose. They blinked several times but passed me the tablet and stylus. I didn't recognize any of their apps, so I searched for anything with a 'map' keyword. I clicked the first app in the results. Thankfully, it had an input image option.

Every place where Key had left a frozen self stayed in my mind. I couldn't sketch the place mostly hidden by the dust cloud, so I tried the apartment and its surrounding space. I couldn't draw anywhere near as well as I could paint, but the app could match similar spaces. It narrowed the choices down to only 30 pages of results.

It took hours to find the one Key had shown me. Thankfully, I had food. Bevel, The Sovereign, and the Head stayed with me the whole time, but they'd retreated to the other half of the table to work.

I smiled up at them. 'Key's alive.' They stopped to listen. 'I don't know where she is, but I think I know where she lives.'

Bevel looked at the Sovereign. She shook her head. 'We're too busy with melties to search today. We'll send Agreeance first thing tomorrow.'

My smile shrank. If only it hadn't been Agreeance. If only I could've done this without Enid.

'Nia, congratulations. You've earned a place in my employ.'


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Enid, July 5, 3110 CE

Morrow handed Ags and me our uniforms in the unisex locker at the crack of dawn. These were some serious security lockers. Instead of keys you grabbed at the door and turned it in at the end of your workout, all the lockers had names on plates and tag slots.

Ags, that entitled prick, asked me to leave. I pulled off my top and threw it on the floor. If he wanted me out, he'd have to move my cold dead body.

He snarled like a feral dog on a chain and turned his ass around. He hadn't turned off his log or tried to tangle since our first and only match. He'd hidden a brain somewhere behind that tat of his mum.

We'd be close enough the Adban Desert that we needed masks and boots and layered robes. The top, black layer soaked up all the heat. The under layers kept the heat off our skin. Morrow called it standard psiber gear except we wouldn't be travelling in the standard hunting pack because the local psibers kept the melties outside of town. The police kept the locals outside of Court. The Court kept the police.

Morrow gave each of us a copy of Key's tag in case the apartment was hers. She gave each of us a special taser that shorted a psiber's implants in case it wasn't.

'Don't even think about using it on me,' said Ags. It didn't work on anyone registered with the Court.

'Last time I checked, I didn't need it.'

That one had a real selective memory. His face took the ugly color of an opened blister. Putting on the mask did him a favor.

Morrow took us up and out to the Doghouse. It stretched as long and wide as the hangars at the airport, but the inside looked more like a giant version of the locker where all the lockers were about half the size of shipping crates and made of clear, thick plastic. Most were empty, but the few dogs present floated curled inside. Nia would've killed to be here with the furry robots. I had to take her when we got back.

Morrow clanked up a ladder to the nearest floating dog. She slotted her tag and scanned her face. The dog floated down to the bottom. When it hit the floor, its fist-sized black eyes opened and the front panel rolled up like a garage door. The dog stood, crouched, and leaped out of the crate.

Morrow clanked back down and patted the stretching dog. She looked at Ags and me. We looked at each other and back at her.

'I'm not sharing a dog with this one.'

'If I don't get my own dog, I'm taking the fucking tram.'

'You take the dog, I'll take the tram.' I could drive a car but I couldn't drive a dog. Trams, I knew. I could do them.

'You can't take the tram. You don't have a tag,' said Morrow. 'We don't have enough dogs to spare.'

We played paper, scissors, stone for driver's seat. I'd be damned if I had to sit behind Ags and listen to him whinge about how I'd stab him in the back. He was no Caesar and I was the opposite of his best mate. I won and I was tall and broad enough that he couldn't see past me. I'd really won.

'How do I make it go?'

Ags groaned. 'That's it. I'm driving. Out of the way, Behemoth.'

I didn't budge. He stood up and took a step over my shoulder. I grabbed his boot around the ankle and shoved up. He fell back with a yelp, clinging to the long fur on the ridge and unrolling over the side.

'No one needs to drive,' said Morrow. She'd put the coordinates in the dog's head. We just needed to say the activation word and hold on.

I waited until Ags had crawled back to ask, 'What's that?'

'Ignition.'

The dog crouched and tensed under us. It lunged out the door. The police officer's dog had run with us. This one tore. I buried my gloved hands in its fur and bent as low as I could. There was nothing to see but a bunch of blurs anyway.

When the dog finally eased off, I shook my hands free and jumped off its back. We'd stopped beside the platform of a tram stop. I could pick out the apartment building far down the road because of the pattern of broken lots and standing buildings.

'You ready?'

Ags patted the taser in his belt holster. 'I'm always ready. Are you ready?'

I turned around and started walking. I'd never believed there were no stupid questions. There were no stupid people. Questions could be stupid.

The building had a scanner like the one back at the Doghouse. Ags reported it to Morrow. We had Key's tag, but she could only give us a 3D scan of Key's ear. We had no way to upload it into the building's scanner.

'There isn't even a fucking buzzer,' said Ags.

'We could break in.'

'Not without breaking stealth.'

I raised an eyebrow, being that we'd have rung a fucking buzzer if there'd been one. Then I phased my arm through the sandstone brick wall.

'What the fuck kind of psiber are you?'

I pulled my arm back, flexing my fingers. I shrugged. I was me and whatever Emrys and the ancestors had made me.

'Not even Mauve can do that.'

The name sounded familiar. 'Why's that matter?'

'Now's not the time for a full course on the modern political system, but in the roughest terms, the strongest psiber is named Sovereign.'

That was literally the most archaic thing I'd ever heard. Loegria had gone back to fucking feudalism. No wonder Emrys had been so sure King Arthur's tragedy would repeat itself. I didn't remember hearing about whatever part Ags had played, though. Probably no better or worse than the rest of them.

I held out my gloved hand. 'Hold on and I'll phase us through the wall.'

His mask tilted down. It tilted back up. Ags gave me his hand and turned his head away from the wall. I yanked him through after me.

We were in a kitchen with an island bar a bit like the one back home. I'd never liked it because I had to walk all the way round every time I needed to get to the fridge. But looking at the stupid thing now with its stools and cabinets in the middle of the room made my heart twinge. I massaged it out of my chest.

'What's wrong?' asked Ags.

'You care now, do ya?'

'You just phased us through the fucking wall,' he screamed in a whisper. 'If you're out of power, we're trapped in here. Of course I care.'

I had to chalk myself up for a stupid question. Truth was, I could manage phasing for hours. It was the easiest way to search the apartment building. Ags was fine to stay by himself in the kitchen, so I phased and floated through the rest of the rooms.

I didn't find a single person, but the whole top floor had been turned into some kind of lab. The windows had been boarded up on the outside. On the inside, a fancy tinted glass sealed them a second time. There were a bunch of machines I'd never seen before, something that looked like a fridge but wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't, an emergency shower, and active computer screens. I didn't stop to check the screens.

I phased Ags and his log too and floated them up with me. He kept patting himself with his free hand. To be fair, phasing did feel strange because it was no feeling that you could feel. Your body somehow stayed together and felt like your body, but everything else was like a still wind after a storm around a body that'd only ever felt storms.

We unphased in the lab. The plant lights brightened. I guessed the tiles had been rigged with nonlethal pressure sensors. Whoever owned this space had too much effort into maintaining it to destroy anything. I hadn't seen a single speck of dust even in the light of the computer screens. Hell, the computers were still running mystery programs while they were out.

Ags sat in front of one of the wall screens and did something to pull up all the programs at once in mini squares on his screen. He clicked through them too quickly for me to follow even if I'd known what to look for. I wondered if the tech in him let him process data faster than people without it or with less.

He swiveled around in the chair, leaving the screen on the first program it'd been running. I'd been standing behind him. Now I was in front. I folded my arms. 'Well?'

'I just checked. Technically, experimenting on humans isn't illegal. Mother Lake Industries has a monopoly on it, but not illegal.'

'Experimenting on Key without her consent would be.'

'The samples aren't from Key. They're from someone called Pearl. And it looks like...the scientist managed to induce innate psionics in Pearl.'

It didn't sound like the monopoly would be happy to hear it. Still, one success wasn't worth shit. Ags said the scientist had put Pearl's cells into a bunch of samples with cells not from Pearl. They were waiting to see if a combo of the active cells and environment conditions would replicate the results.

'This sounds like the kind of thing we should report.'

Ags hunched over his knees, masked head in his hands. 'Maybe.'

If Morrow found out, she'd confiscate it to somewhere the public would never know it existed. If the Sovereign found out, they'd make a public announcement, but then Mother Lake Industries would know. They'd take it as a declaration of war, and nobody wanted a war with the monopoly that put everyone's tech in their head.

'Fine. Then we don't report it.'

'No, you were right the first time.'

People had to know in case the scientist succeeded. The monopoly would eventually find out and fight this to the death. The only way the scientist and their process could survive was if people had prepared.

'Shite. Wait. We could tell the scientist to tell their friends. Anyone they think is safe.'

Ags lifted their head off their hands. They swivelled back to the computer and typed a note from us neighborly folk. 'I should've guessed you'd come up with the perfect skeevy plot.'

I grabbed the back of his chair with one hand and spun him around. 'What is your problem?'

He pointed at himself. 'I wasn't the one who used psionics in fair fight.'

'Fair fight? You took one look at me and just assumed I knew martial arts.'

He stabbed his finger at me. 'You could've refused.'

'I was assigned to guard your ass and you said you'd only accept me if I beat your ass.'

'Why do you think I still haven't accepted you?' he screamed.

I let go of the chair, shoving it against the desk. That prick stormed past me to the door. He kicked it and roared. He'd tried to kick it open, but it was locked. He grabbed his foot and sat on the floor, massaging it. Served him right.

I sat in the chair and walked myself halfway toward him. 'Where I come from, we call that a tantrum. And they're thrown primarily by children.'

'I'm allergic to MF.'

'Motherfuckers?'

He coughed and sputtered. 'No, MoodFriend.'

It was a group drugs that stabilized moods. They had them for anger, depression, mania, and more. About half the people in Loegria used one or more of them. Ags had to rely completely on therapy.

'It's helped a lot, but I still need improving. So when Auntie M put us together, I got scared and triggered. I've never worked with anyone before, only staffbots because they're impossible to damage.'

'Alright. Sorry for calling you a child.'

'You can take your pity and shove it,' he said without screaming. 'I told you because you're the closest thing I have to a partner. If you ever feel threatened, you've got my say to...' He strangled the air between his gloved hands. 'I won't like it, but I'd rather not let something worse happen.'

I let him cool his heels and phased through the apartments again. Key hadn't returned. There was food in the fridge, so somebody'd planned on returning at some point.

I was feeling peckish, so I grabbed a couple chunks of pineapple out of a glass container with my gloves. I phased and took off my helmet. It stayed phased and the pineapple had phased with me. I popped one in my mouth. My brain said it was pineapple and I was able to chew and swallow. At the same time, it felt like I was a 2D picture eating another 2D picture. I unphased to eat the rest.

I floated back to Ags, who was on the computer again. There hadn't been any changes in the cells. He'd found records of the scientist's dealings with melties. They'd recorded locations and the particular malfunctions, as told by AI, who were apparently different from robots. The last entry was only a location.

Psibers hunted in packs, so maybe the scientist had asked Key to join them. 'Let's go.'

Ags swivelled around. 'Do you know why psibers hunt in packs?'

'Just fucking say it.'

Meltdowns happened under extreme heat conditions. The heat conditions didn't happen to one piece of machinery, they happened in areas of the Adban. Any AI caught in that area suffered meltdown. A report of one melty always meant more.

'If see one, I'll just phase us until we find Key and then phase us out of there.'

'Oh. Right. Let's go.'

I phased us out of the apartment building. Ags said it'd be faster if we stayed phased and I flew us back to the dog, so that's what we did. I flew faster than we could run, but the dog ran faster than I could fly. Ags took the driver's seat to feed the dog the coordinates. I phased all three of us, so the dog wouldn't have to make any detours.

'Ignition.'

The dog bolted straight into the Adban and a zero-visibility wall of grit that could've scraped the organic bits off its metal skeleton. We passed through in seconds, but we might as well have teleported to fucking Venus.

I didn't know where in Loegria we were, but in my time, there would've been forest. I knew the trees. I only knew these future shrubs had cropped up as tiger brush, green stripes over mostly bare, mostly flat land. It meant Loegria had lost its hills and its rain. I'd have to have a good cry about it when we got back to Court.

The dog slowed, skirting the edge of a deep, sandy sinkhole. Our side and the one opposite had twin, angular projections. They weren't rocks. They were skyscrapers in shambles, windowless, twisted heaps of metal. We were in downtown Logres. There hadn't been trees here for centuries, except in the park. I scratched the cry off my to-do list.

The dog slowed on the other end of the sinkhole in the shade of a block of skyscraper tops. They'd managed to keep their lightning rods, now pointing in random directions, if not their windows. We got off the dog. Ags said it'd be fine in the heat because its tech didn't have the AI's sensitivity. The glass had left plenty of shards in the window frames, so I didn't unphase us until we were inside.

We'd entered a preserved office. Every cubicle had a desktop and swivel chair pushed in properly under the desk. There weren't any personal effects at the cubicles we saw by the sunlight, but there wasn't any glass or sand either.

Ags swore. 'Clerks.'

Any AI programmed with customer service and cleaning priorities melted into a real nasty sort. All AI ran on sunlight, but every time they went out to feed, they put themselves at risk. When meltdown affected the feed, the AI wrecked havoc at surface level. When it didn't, the feed program returned them to their stations before the meltdown hit.

'Phase time,' I said.

Ags shook his head and turned on his mask's headlamp. 'Lights first. The only power down there's inside the melties.'

'If everyone here's a melty, who reported them?'

'Hopefully an AI on a different shift, but you're right. It's never a melty.'

I rubbed my hands over my helmet. The switch was just under the base of my neck. It made sense. If anything hit you close enough to turn it off, you'd be too concussed or dead to get pissed.

I phased us through the floor from the center of the office, keeping the pace as slow as an escalator's. Ags had been right. There wasn't any light past the surface. We stayed back to back for a mostly full lit circle from our headlamps. Every floor looked the same as the first except the window holes had been closed up with welded metal like the AI had let the eroding downtown slowly bury them with itself.

We were halfway through B8, our legs dangling through B9's ceiling, when a spot of light bounced up from the stairwell at the end of the room. I pulled us back up and unphased.

'Try me when I'm not sucking base out of a guy's bloodstream,' a tiny masked psiber yelled down the stairwell. They flew into the office followed by another masked psiber floating horizontally. The floater's lamp wasn't on.

'Is Key with you?' asked Ags.

The flyer didn't stop and neither did the floater, Lancelot's reincarnation. 'So are a fuck ton of melties.' They shot up through an emergency stairwell on the other side of the office.

Two more psibers charged up the first stair. They saw us and yelled but didn't stop running. Many feet clanked behind them with an unsynchronized chant of 'Please rate your satisfaction.'

As they passed us, I grabbed one and Ags grabbed the other, reincarnations of Arthur and Kay. We linked hands, and I phased us.

Gray green melties swarmed through the doorway, screaming their chant. They belched fluids from their knees and elbows and waved five finger boxcutters on each hand. The group of about twenty ran and crawled and sprang through us. They wet, sliced, and trampled everything in their path, including each other.

I unphased us.

'Key?' asked Ags.

The one about my height grabbed my shoulder and shook it. 'Take us up! Up!' They stabbed up a finger on the other hand.

The shorter one took that hand. 'We're the cover!'

I took us up and unphased. That hadn't been the plan. I dropped to the floor. Half the melties stopped and turned. 'Please rate your satisfaction.'

They charged. The one my height hefted me onto their back and ran for the first stairwell. Ags and the shorter one ran backward, one arm straight out toward the melties. They clenched their fists.

Two melties crunched and popped. Fluids gushed in all directions. They crumpled into balls. The rest of their swarm trampled them as flat as the cubicle walls.

Ags and the other turned in the right direction and followed us up the stairs. A melty leapt onto the underside of the stairs above us. 'Please rate your satisfaction.' It slashed at Ags' mask and leaked and splashed on all of us.

I screamed. Someone threw the melty onto the swarm. That industrial strength shit burned faster than bleach. The melty popped and gushed onto the swarm. If our masks hadn't kept out smells, I'd have taken one whiff and had a piss of terror.

Two more leaped in its place, one in front and one behind. Both leaked. I screamed again, uselessly. The others had to pick them off one by one as we all burned. 'Please rate your satisfaction.'

They picked off the last one and threw the melty ball back down to B4. We entered B3 to get to cross to the other stairwell, but the first two psibers had stopped inside.

The tiny one had shoved two monitors onto the floor and pushed their desks together. They'd draped the ex-floater over them. The desks were small enough that their knees hung over the side. The tiny one waved at us. 'You found Key!'

The one carrying me crouched and dropped my legs. 'How's the walking dick?'

I let go of their shoulders and fell back. I had no core strength. I pissed myself before I hit the floor. I never hit the floor. Someone caught my shoulders.

'Enid, are you okay?'

Voices mumbled and jumbled together over my mask. All I could see was a perfect circle of light on the ceiling. This building didn't have plant light tiles, only the fluorescents that'd been hanging over me since birth.

The ancestors mentioned something about needing sleep to get my magic back. I'd be damned if I missed out on this Key-finding business after all the piss and burn I'd taken. I set my inner timer. 'Just gimme 15 minutes.'

My eyes popped open, right on schedule. I pulled myself up through my core. I didn't have any magic right now, but nobody sitting on the circle of desks in the middle of the office seemed bothered about more melties. Only that one psiber hadn't gotten up.

I walked into the center of the circle. They stopped talking. I pointed at the members of the hunting pack in order of descending height. 'Key. Alter. Lathe. Baozhu.'

It had to be Baozhu. Phasing had shocked Ags like it'd been magic to him, more magical than the usual psionics, anyway. The tiny heighted one had phased through us. 'How'd you handle that whole pack of melties?'

Ags had sprung to his feet, along with everyone but Baozhu and Lathe. He started yammering before Baozhu had answered. I held up a hand beside him. He stopped.

Baozhu sighed and leaned back on their hands. 'I completely forgot about the aura-detect app.' They laughed with their headlamp on the ceiling. Their circle of light jittered over them and stopped with the muffled sound. 'We can use AOEs if there's 0 chance of friendly fire.'

Goody for us. Personally, I never wanted to touch magic again. That shite had wrecked me worse than the one pub crawl I'd done dehydrated.

'Whenever you're ready, we've got a dog taking us back to Court.'

'We can't go back,' said Alter.

Ags stepped toward them, hands down but out. 'Alter, Cousin, please. You're the rightful Sovereign. As much as I love Mauve and she loves power, my sis can't do what you can.'

'Let him stay. Let him rot,' said Key. 'You came here for me, yeah? I'll go. Let's go.'

'Which one of you's the one with the lab?' I asked.

Alter raised their hand. That must've been why they couldn't leave, but if their cells had come from Baozhu, they'd never been on track for a breakthrough anyway.

I folded my arms and shook my head. 'There's nothing special in our cells. This guy Emrys let us borrow his ancestor magic.'

Alter turned on Baozhu. 'You told me you were a genetic psion.'

My cousin pushed off their arms to hunch over their knees. 'Technically, I said some things under duress when you didn't believe the truth. But Mr. E's magic seems like it could be called innate psionics. It's just his, not mine.'

Alter walked back to their desk and sat on the floor. They leaned back against the drawers, legs straight out and arms limp at their sides.

'Myrddin Emrys is at Court,' said Ags. 'Come home and finish the experiment there.'

'There's no way to keep secrets from Auntie M working right under her nose.'

'Well, you can't stay here.'

Many feet clanked on both stairwells. Alter and Baozhu jumped to their feet. Alter stood back to back with Key. Baozhu stood next to Lathe. I looked at Ags, but he handed moved. No one could stay because he'd reported us on his log.

Black masked and robed psibers swarmed through the doorways. They hit us with a gibbering cloud of unsynchronized questions. Black gloved hands pushed and grabbed and pulled a path through Ags and I, and then it was all shoulders. They'd only come for Alter.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Enid, July 5, 3110 CE

The giant ass door of the decontamination hangar slid down into floorless bridge vertebra by metal vertebra so everyone could ride the dogs across. A voice on the PA and raised letters on the wall screen asked us to get off. Ags and I jumped down on either side of Ignit. The door slithered back vertebra by metal vertebra and closed everyone and the dogs in the wide but flat metal foyer without any fixtures. The plant lights behind the glass ceiling tiles didn't count, the computer display was the wall.

The door snicked shut. Bluish mist piped into the foyer from all directions. It sunk through my robes and mask, cool on my newly healed skin. It smelled like the nicotine gum my parents made me chew before I'd found my way to a gym and quit for good.

The spray ended and a large door at the far side of the room slid its doors into the walls. The dogs marched through. The doors shut behind Ignit and its clones.

The door on the other side and the one in front opened. Morrow walked through the front. 'Alter, Lathe, Key, Agreeance, Enid and Baozhu, please wait here.' She directed the other psibers to leave through the side door.

Alone, we followed her straight into the hall ahead with its almost homey white painted walls and tan plastic tiles. She stopped before the tinted glass doors at the end of the hall. Morrow steepled her fingers and her long, painted nails hooked each other. 'In light of having recovered our Sovereign from the dead, or the leak of news of it, the debriefing has been postponed until after your loved ones have assured themselves of your well-being.'

'What's the catch?' asked Ags.

'They will also be debriefed.' She turned toward the doors then looked over a shoulder. 'You might want to leave your masks here.'

Ags and I pulled off our masks and tossed them on the floor. The three people I didn't know took off their masks. Key, the girl my height, threw hers over her shoulder without looking. A staffbot, one of a team that'd appeared out of nowhere, caught it before it hit the floor. Alter, the one who looked like a more feminine Ags with spiky, strawberry blonde hair, passed their mask to a staffbot. Lathe, the short, bulked up one held theirs. My cousin never took theirs off.

We walked through the doors, and a green-robed blur ran at us. Baoyu could really dash. He let go of Baozhu and stepped back. 'What-why-'

'I had to see a doc about meds.'

I gave them some space, leaving for a bluish-green armchair. I grinned and nodded at Nia, standing with three more people I didn't know. She winked at me but didn't move. She'd always been serious when it came to working. I was only serious about working out.

Ags flopped onto the loveseat next to me. He crossed his arms and stretched out until his feet hung over the arm. He lifted one arm and pointed at the person with the tablet who'd left Nia's group to talk to Key. 'That's Bevel.' They been Key's trainee back when Key was Alter's PA.

He pointed at the person with the shaved head and dressed in all white standing on the far side of the room. Lathe stood directly across from them, still by the glass doors. 'That's Gigi.' She'd married Alter to seal a peace contract with Wales, her neighboring country of psibers. The contract had passed to Mauve, the next Loegrian sovereign, after they'd declared Alter dead.

Gigi and Lathe's eyes both tracked Alter as Alter crossed the room toward Nia's group. Ags pointed at the one with a silver headband. 'That's my sister.'

'Alter.'

'Mauve.'

'I was surprised to hear you were found.'

'Your brother's a stickler for rules.'

She flashed teeth in a grimace but only for a second. 'He's our only low-priority deploy thanks to this fucking heat wave.'

'You could've gone,' said Alter around their teeth.

Her frown dug trenches in her face. 'I can't care for Loegria if I'm dead.'

Alter bit both lips and walked past her and the group. They threw a hand over their head, signalling to Morrow without turning. They left for the debriefing hall on the other side. Gigi followed them out without a single glance at Lathe.

No wonder Emrys sent us to watch these people. We'd just escaped with our fucking lives and everyone but Key and Bevel were being miserable pricks. Lathe and Gigi pretended like the other didn't exist. Mauve had practically wished Alter had stayed dead to their face. I could see why they'd ended up killing each other.

Baoyu gave Baozhu a quick hug and ran after Gigi. Bevel smiled crookedly at Key and walked back to Mauve, their head ducking lower every step. I waved at Nia as Mauve took her group out. Baozhu came over and leaned their arms on the back of the loveseat. 'Somehow it feels like magic isn't gonna be enough to fix this.'

'It sure failed Emrys the first go round.' Magic couldn't fix shit. I'd rather go the rest of my life without hearing another gibbering ancestor than keep this useless power.

'Speaking of, he wasn't here to pick up Lathe.'

'Maybe he's already given up.'

Baozhu propped their masked head on their gloved hands. Morrow laughed behind and between us, her splayed her fingers over her copper mouth. 'Myrddin's busy trying to seduce my wife. He's been at it for days now.'

'That doesn't bother you?' I asked.

Morrow and Vivid hadn't partnered out of politics, but they'd filed for a full, peace contract marriage like Alter and Gigi. Mother Lake Industries helped legalize the practice to keep down conflict between powerful psiber factions. Breaking the contract was the same as declaring war. 'We enjoy the severity, but Vivid would kill Myrddin before it came to that.'

'That's the opposite of comforting.' I couldn't think of the word I wanted.

'That's fucked, Auntie M,' said Ags. He got it.

She just laughed, all the way to the debriefing room. Manon, Baoyu, and Nia stood in the hall outside the door, gathered around the tablet Morgue had ordered Manon.

'Apparently, it kills her ears every time I make an American historical reference, but that's just pop culture to me, so she was like, "Pop. Time for a thousand years worth of updates."'

'Bevel makes these cute stickers you can put on it. Do want me to ask them to design some for you?'

'Would you mind? I'd love something cute, topical but timeless.'

Morrow walked around them and opened the door with her tag. Ags and I were last in line. She held up a glowing palm. 'Sorry, Agreeance, but this is above your security clearance.'

Adrenaline flooded me. We'd risked our lives together. We'd almost died together, so it was only fair that we got to hear the mission debrief together. 'No, Ags and I are a team.'

I held out my hand for a high-five. He looked at it and then looked at me. I nodded. That dork grabbed it like I wanted to phase us through Morrow.

'That's right!'

'Very well, but you have to put that,' she pointed at his log, 'away.'

Fruit, thick sandwich rolls, and porcelain pitchers sat at the center of a table. My stomach growled. Baoyu and Baozhu sat on one length of the table with an empty seat beside them. Manon and Nia sat on the other length with another empty seat. Since I invited Ags, I took the end chair and Ags sat next to Nia. Morrow walked in, completely quiet on the carpet, and sat at the head. The door sealed shut.

'Congratulations are in order, Enid, Agreeance-'

Manon whooped and clapped, and everyone clapped. Baoyu whistled. Ags and I had our hands and mouths stuffed with food. I set my fruit and rolls on the table and gave him and me a pitcher each. We knocked them together with a proper sloshing clank.

Morrow smiled and waited with folded, clenched hands. 'You've not only found Key, but former Head of Security Lathe, and former Sovereign Alter.'

Alter had been taken for a medical check-up where they'd also gauge their power. If Alter read stronger than Mauve, she'd have to step down.

'Perhaps we'll witness the first bloodless transfer of power in our lifetime.'

'What happened last time?' asked Baoyu.

Alter's stepfather's test had read stronger than Alter's genetic sire's test, but their genetic sire refused to step down. They got into a row that drained their psionics, killing them both. Alter ended up Sovereign at fourteen.

'So, think positive thoughts. Regardless of the results, Alter's mother, my sister Elate, and her newest husband, Limerick, will arrive tomorrow. You might know them as Elaine and Lamorak.'

The five of us she'd addressed looked at each other. I shook my head. 'I've never heard of them.'

'Morgause's affair with Lamorak began the series of events that led to the death of magic. And Arthur.'

'Why isn't Myrddin telling us about it?' asked Nia.

'He was remiss in his duties last time. I suspect he recruited you to make up for his repeated negligence.'

'So you're saying that fucksock planned to go AWOL,' said Manon, typing so fast their fingers blurred. 'Morgue is going to flip her shit.'

Morrow yanked the tablet into her hand with her psionics. She pressed a single spot on the screen, deleting the message. 'This information cannot leave this room. We don't need any rumors about a Morgue-Limerick affair. Our relationship with the Southeastern U.S. psibers is strained enough as it is.'

Manon, Baoyu, and Baozhu were from Georgia. 'We have to know.'

The Southeastern U.S. had been the slowest and most hostile toward accepting AI. Once the heatwaves started, they'd taken the threat of melties as an excuse to make all AI illegal. Any AI they found could be destroyed and recycled on sight. Then the governments started offering rewards, turning AI hunts into a competitive sport.

Manon closed their eyes, flashing those damn gold and green leaf veins on their eyelids I could've sworn I'd seen before. 'It's been a thousand years and nothing's changed.'

Baoyu leaned his head over the back of the chair, staring at the ceiling tiles. Baozhu patted his shoulder with a gloved hand.

Nia and I had nothing to say. All I knew about the U.S. was it was the place to go for banging music, more movies than you could watch in a lifetime, and food with more additives than food. I thought Nia ordered some makeup from there, but mostly from Korea.

I counted on my fingers. 'We cockblock Morgue and Limerick, Alter doesn't die, and then we can go back home.'

'Lathe's return brings up another complication.'

'Gigi,' said Baoyu, voice hushed.

'You must maintain constant vigilance of your charges. Unfortunately, it's doubtful Myrddin will watch his own charge.'

'Baoyu, you're already with Gigi. Do you mind cockblocking Lathe on your own?' asked Manon.

'Yeah, sure.'

Manon raised a thick, pointed eyebrow and shrugged. 'Problem solved.'

'I'll keep my log on until Auntie E leaves,' said Ags.

'Please wait until we've left the room, Agreeance.' Morrow gave us some more warnings for good measure until 'Meeting adjourned.' She held Baozhu, Ags, and me back, though. She'd scheduled us for mandatory trauma therapy sessions. 'But, I can arrange a group session, if you'd like.'

The three of us sat on these little half-moon armchairs on one side of an oval coffee table made of marble. On the other side was a normal-sized armchair in front of a tropical set aquarium that stretched from one side of the wall to the glass window-wall on the other. A hidden white noise machine made you think you heard the fish swimming. It must've had a motion sensor for the tank to synchronize the sounds with the moves.

The receptionist had taken our brain and body scans and sent them to the therapist, Scabbard. It took time to review them, but we'd been allowed into the counseling room as long as we didn't bring any food or beverages with us.

The window and plant lights eased into a pale blue tint. A bald, gray green android in light blue robes walked in with a tablet and a smile. They sat in the armchair and pulled a jelly grip stylus off the back of tablet. 'Good afternoon, I'm Scabbard, they/them.'

'You're an AI,' I said.

Their mouth closed over their teeth, but they kept smiling and nodded. 'That's correct.'

Therapeutic AI began their training under humans, but because they couldn't die and they could share memory logs, they racked up more lifetimes of experience than any human. Not all therapists were AI, but all 'late-stage melty-related trauma counselors' were because it was almost impossible to avoid AI or bots in daily life.

All patients had to be asked if they wanted to see an AI therapist for the first session. The ones who refused would build up to it over many sessions.

'The one who recommended you to me should've explained this. I'm sorry you had to find out here. We're supposed to be establishing a safe space.'

'Well, I can see you're not rabid like them.'

Their teeth returned. 'Alright. If anyone feels at all uneasy or uncomfortable, please let me know.'

'Is this the part where we talk about how we almost died?'

'That will come later.'

'How many sessions did Morrow sign us up for?'

'As many as it takes until the events aren't controlling any aspect of your lives.'

'We're psibers-we'll always be fighting melties,' said Baozhu.

That was the catch. As long as we were in the future fighting melties, we'd have mandatory therapy. That was the best the Court could offer us for risking our lives day in, day out. I never thought I'd say it, but I wished for those bitter, biting days of sun-dead winter.

'Fortunately, as psibers registered to the Court, your chances of deployment are exponentially lower than most.'

'What happens to the others?' asked Baozhu.

I didn't know why Baozhu wanted to know. I just wanted to get this over with. Besides, psibers seemed to be future soldiers. They probably had as high a turnover rate as ours but a higher casualty rate. Instead of turning in a gun, they could've turned in whatever tech made them psiber.

I zoned out for the rest of the talk until Scabbard asked us to stand up and move our chairs. Scabbard pushed theirs to the wall under the aquarium. Baozhu, Ags, and I lined ours up next to the door. We carried the table together.

Scabbard pulled a mat from the side pocket of their armchair. They unrolled it over the carpet. White and light blue squares formed circles inside circles of pixely turtles. Scabbard sat cross-legged between two lines of turtles. We sat between the same lines in a circle.

Scabbard mentioned grounding and mindfulness. I was the most grounded person I knew. As for mindfulness, Scabbard led us through breathing and meditation exercises. A lot of them I'd learned when I'd been trying to quit. None of them worked as well as exercise.

When I worked out, it felt like I was inside and outside my body at the same time. I still craved the nicotine, but it became just one part of me instead of all of me. That must've been what Scabbard meant by mindfulness. I'd handled stress before. I could do it again, no problem.

At the end, Scabbard gave us their number on a white business card with a blue turtle print. They asked us to try to avoid thinking about what had happened with the melties. All of us had another session with them in four days, separately. 'Unless you're deployed before then. We'll evaluate your well-being and see if you're ready to progress to the next stage.'

The receptionist printed anxiety MFs from behind their desk. They read the instructions to Baozhu and me off their tablet. It had four stickers on the back in Chinese.

'Can you read that?' I asked my cousin, jerking my head at the back of the receptionist's tablet. The receptionist kept reading.

Baozhu snickered. 'Huayanqiaoyu-beautiful words that mean nothing.'

'Why would you want words that didn't mean anything as stickers?' asked Ags, reading my mind. The receptionist looked up from their tablet. 'Uh, sorry. Please continue.'

The receptionist read the entire ingredient list out of spite. When they'd finished, Baozhu left to get back to Alter. I already had Ags with me.

We walked out of Scabbard's clinic on the first floor of the Court. 'What's next on today's to-do list?'

He rubbed the buzzed hair under his neck. 'Today's been too surreal to get on with my normal schedule. Maybe if everything I do today is weird I can pass the whole day off as a dream.'

'You could come workout with me.'

'There'll be a lot people right now.'

'Showing off is great for motivation.'

'Ha! I could show off at least twice as well as you.'

Competition was better. 'You're on.'

There were a lot of people since most of the non-psibers got off work around 17:30, but they still had a locker for me in the shitty, free-for-all rent section. I changed into a bright orange wicking tee and black wicking shorts and let the locker clang shut. I used my business stalk, back straight, shoulders broad, head just down enough to put my glaring eyes front and center, to part the crowd. Nobody wanted to be the one I had business with.

Ags waited out front in a black tee and a pair of red shorts I knew I'd seen before. His family ran the Court, so of course he had a personalized locker. He said most of the other psibers with Court facility access worked as police or Court security officers.

Every fitness room we passed had 5-10 people inside but had a comfortable capacity for about 20. Ags stopped us outside the weight room. It was no different, having six other users and appearing and disappearing staffbots for spotting and cleanup. I'd had a staffbot spot me every day I'd been in. It didn't just count but kept track of my stats and vitals and sent a copy to the desktop in my room.

Ags passed me what looked like bright red earbuds but weren't because this was the fucking future. 'These were a custom print, so if you lose them, you have to let me kick your ass.'

He passed me the thumb-sized switcher that went with them to filter unwanted sounds, put sounds through a filter, and stream music. Most adults in Loegria didn't need this kind of external tech because of all the 'standard, benign implants.' This was an adult-size version of children's tech, SoundTrack.

I put them in and they expanded to fit my ear. I switched through a bunch of music stations, but everything was unfamiliar. 'What's your go-to workout music?'

He synched my SoundTrack to his playlist. The mix of overdramatic lyrics and upbeat instrumentals was cartoony. It was fast enough to run to, but it sounded more like a song you wanted to have a friend around for when it came on so you could goof off, singing and dancing at each other. It inspired me.

I stepped into the weight room with a lunge and flung my arms wide. 'Behemoth!'

Ags followed my lead and lunged back-to-back. He flung out his arms. 'Ags!'

'Have come to dominate!'

Ags pumped his fists in the air with a long whoop.

The other users had frozen. The door whooshed shut behind us in the silence. They looked at us, at each other, and back at us. One with 20 kgs in both hands pumped up their arms, 'Whoo!'

Everyone whooped. It was on.

Ags rarely used the weight room, so he followed me around. The poor guy didn't know today was a leg day. I took him to the clear space tucked away in the corner and passed him a jump rope. I liked starting my warm-up with about three minutes of nonstop jumping. We hit the core and lower body hardest.

'Are we doing a leg workout?' he asked. He'd handled the warm-up fine, sweating without losing his breath.

'Just focus on the beat and let the bots do the counting.'

He groaned but followed me to the barbells for squats. I liked to do four sets of fewer reps with free weights and three sets of more reps on machines.

I nodded at the users checking out our form and they nodded back. These people knew their stuff. Three of them focused only on either pushing or pulling exercises. Two of them did intervals on rowing machines with a proper drive, core-back engage, follow through, and reverse. That last one went from lifts to a walking lunge cooldown. They only stretched out for a bit but hit all the major muscles before they hydrated.

'The lactic acid is burning me alive,' Ags whispered, raising his calves.

'We're almost done. Then we can get chocolate milk.' I didn't know how to order a protein shake to get a 4:1 carb-protein ratio in grams, and the kids behind the counter made them a little different every time, so I'd gotten used to the milk.

'You don't want to see me on sugar. Isn't that, uh...'

I glanced in the mirror. 'That's Nia, my twin sister.'

She stood at the desk, holding her hands. I held up a finger to let her know I had one last set. I finished and stayed in the wide path, clear of the users, but walked in lunges to get to her.

'Enid, this is serious.'

'If I don't cool down, I will seriously pass out.'

She tilted her head to one side but left for the hall. I pointed in that direction to let Ags know I hadn't ditched him. We stayed to the side, Nia pacing and me lunging.

'What's the matter?'

After therapy, Bevel had talked to Key, who told them what had happened. Bevel told Mauve and Nia. Mauve let Nia off early to check on me. Key must've had late-stage melty-related trauma therapy.

'Don't worry about it.'

Nia stopped looking ahead to stare straight at me. 'Don't worry about it? I heard you passed out,' she lowered her voice, 'I heard you lost your magic.'

'I'm not supposed to talk about it.'

Nia gripped my arm. She couldn't hold my hand because I lunged with clenched fists. 'I'm your twin. You can tell me anything.'

'No, I'm serious.' I'd had enough dynamics. I stood straight and walked back toward the weight room to stretch.

Ags poked his head out the door. He jogged over to join my fast-paced walk. 'Hey-'

Nia joined us, keeping pace. I was on the wall, so she had to walk with Ags between us. 'Did you tell him what happened?'

'He was there, Nia.'

'I know I wasn't, but I'm here for you now. Please, just let me into your life.'

Ags sped up to get his business away from the conversation. I stopped outside the door, glaring front and center. 'Yes, I passed out. Yes, I lost my magic.'

Just saying it, I felt that same sick feeling in my core. It was more than a powerlessness. It felt like someone had vacuumed out my muscles and left only the squishing, squashing organs. They sloshed around inside and their juices sloshed inside them. Nausea flooded me like adrenaline.

'But I'm fine now. So don't worry. And don't ask me about it again. I'll tell you when the therapist says I can tell you.'

I left her outside the weight room and took Ags through the stretches. He was extremely flexible from all the martial arts training, but I couldn't enjoy competing with him. I could barely hear the music in my own ears. All I heard were the ancestors, asking me to sleep to get the magic back. The nausea never left.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Manon, July 6, 3110 C.E.

Elate and Limerick's private jet rolled onto the runway looking like a cross between a silver manta ray and the plus sign, so basically a crucified pancake. God, I was so done with airports. I turned to Morgue on my left. 'Can I laugh?'

'Wait till the door's open.' We gave each other our super exclusive zero-contact fist bump-you lifted one eyebrow and nodded once, gravitously.

Morgue had these great, thick threaded eyebrows that practically met in the middle like Frida fucking Kahlo's and she knew it. She totes flaunted it with a different color flower crown every day, but I would've done the same-today was Wednesday, so it was bubblegum pink. She'd done her eyeshadow to match, and her lips accented it with this shimmery, glossy rosewood that she let me borrow for squad solidarity.

The door lowered and honest-to-god stage fog fell in pastel curtains on either side of the pop-up staircase. A beehive of golden hair with a wraparound braid parted the fog. Elate-it had to be Elate-snaked out a single, thick, brown olive leg. She wasn't wearing a shoe.

Morgue and I shared a raised eyebrow. Morgue gasped. I gasped. Elate wasn't wearing shoes because she'd somehow acquired the Avalon, a one-of-a-kind 'dress' that debuted on the Monday runway by Apple Her Eminence, the must-haviest AI fashion designer in the U.S. The Avalon strapped a solar-powered cape of nanotubes on your back and ran the silvery, threadlike tubes around your body so they cooled the surrounding air and gave you a dress of cascading fog, at least from the front.

Of course, Elate emerged from the fog and seemed to carry it down with her-the Avalon even kept the colors. I wasn't even mad. That dress belonged in the spacecraft with the golden records showcasing the best of humanity.

'Oh fuck me,' said Morgue. This was one of the rare occasions that was impossible because Morrow refused to let her orgiastic retinue come with us to the private airfield in case Elate brought a secretly birthed child with her-thankfully, that had only happened once, but Morrow worried it'd scarred four-year-old Alter for life.

Elate stopped at the bottom of the staircase and counted off on her rounded fingers with their crystal-encrusted manicure, starting with the bird. 'No thunder, no lightning, no rain. Which one of you had sex on the heath?'

Baoyu shook like an unpoked potato in a microwave on my right and beside Gigi, who was letting her hair grow in after five months of daily shaves. She snorted and bopped his shoulder with her fist. They reeked of dusty old books and pot, mostly pot.

'Oh, must've been me.' Elate turned her head over her smoking shoulder.

The jet's cloud curtain parted around the sharpest cut cheekbones in a vest-jacket pantsuit I'd ever seen. Limerick was definitely an ebony foundation guy and wore eyeliner in a perfect Moebius, this upper and lower lid wraparound popular with a lot of U.S. music groups right now-Loegria was the perfect place for it because everyone here dressed like they attended a never-ending Californian music festival, and god damn did that guy rock it.

He did have thin, wispy eyebrows, but he'd pierced their entire length with rings, so you barely noticed. His black beard, god damn it, was short and braided until pointy, and he had perfectly trimmed stubble and soldier-cut hair, and, god damn it, I'd have fucked him as a man or a woman.

Limerick smiled, flashing tone white teeth and sharp black eyes that looked us all in our collectively thirsty soul. 'Don't wear your eyes out on me-we brought a longlion.' The Southern gentleman pointed his thumb at the jet's unfolding and also smoking tail.

A jumbo-sized golden leopard without any spots but with a mane ripped off a lion leaped out of the tail fog. It landed on its red-clawed, front two legs the height of a window-display-worthy refrigerator and freezer. It walked toward Limerick, uncoiling its snakey body until its back legs hit the runway. He raised his hand. The longlion bent, the tip of its red tongue poking out. It closed its tawny green eyes and nuzzled Limerick's palm.

'Awww!' said Nia, breaking the Loegrian line to hug its treelike leg. 'What's their name?'

'Pardi Hardi.' Limerick looked back at us. 'Anyone want a ride?'

Morgue and I gave each other the zero bump. 'Hell yes.'

We had to step up our game for the pre-coronation ball Morrow arranged for tonight, so Morgue took me and her nine-person retinue, the Alloparents, on the tram to Sash and Green. Sash and Green were the city's go-to A.I. designers when printer stocked muftis didn't cut it. Their live-in occupied the entire third floor of a squat but wide apartment. You could tell because the wall plants up there spelled Sash and Green.

All the buildings here and in the court looked like they should've had six above-ground stories, but it was always three. Morgue said they'd had to reserve space for all the tech and staffbots it took to maintain a building. As we packed into the glass elevator, I considered laughing at A.I. having robot staff, but it actually made sense-A.I. were the personable brains and staff were the speechless hands.

The elevator opened straight into the offices of Sash and Green. Two androids sat in dark wine armchairs in front of a mural of those Christmas plants with spiky green leaves and bright red berries and tree people with the same leaves growing out of their skin and dancing under them. The androids stood at the same time, and six short, sharply arched wings unfurled behind each of them.

'What?' I said.

They grinned with same jaggedy crescent in the same matte mulberry lipstick-talk about squad goals. 'Memory wire. Deform it any way you like and it will always return to the shape we've assigned it.'

'Wait. I think we had that, too.'

'Don't mind Manon, they came from this historical society's living museum thing. What was it called?'

'Inner city Atlanta.'

They rushed forward, wings flapping behind them. The one channeling film noir with a slit-leg torch singer dress in trenchcoat beige with trenchcoat buttons grabbed Morgue's left hand. The one who'd gone full Christmas with a wintergreen hollow square vested-pantsuit over a black modesty micro grabbed her right hand. 'Are you expecting?'

'Hell no. I waited 18 years for freedom. Never again.'

18 years ago, Morgue hadn't known shit about children, so she used a random generator to pick a number of tubes to add her DNA to. It picked five. Instead of cancelling, she recruited the Alloparents, a bunch of non-Court non-psibers who passed a full health, psych, and background check. They took a nine month course in child-rearing together and then the 18-year practicum. Morgue being Morgue, every one of the Alloparents fell for her and stayed on with a retinue contract.

Sash and Green dropped Morgue's hands and flitted over to me. They circled slowly in opposite directions. I closed my eyes, giving them a full view of the leaf eyeshadow I was all about these days, and massaged a temple with one finger to keep better track of my freshly manicured nails-I'd gone with natural, enhanced. 'Please, could you not?'

'Sorry, we just had to make sure Morgue hadn't hidden a child from us.'

'There's no way she'd rip off Elate's signature move.'

Morgue mouthed 'thank you' in the corner of my eye. She tapped a magenta nail with gold swirls on her forearm. 'Speaking of, you need to help us get on Avalon-tier for this ball tonight.'

'If it's come to that,' Sash and Green threw their arms around each other and burst into tears, 'you're fucked.'

Morgue dropped her head and shuffled toward them. She opened her arms and beckoned, palms-down, with both hands. Sash and Green shuffled sideways into her consoling embrace without letting go of each other. She shooshed them and patted their backs.

I held up my hands. Their Christmas in July crap had actually inspired something other than ennui in me.

Morgue's head snapped up. 'Lay it on me.'

'We can't step up to Elate and the Avalon individually, but we're a squad.' I threw one hand back to the nine Alloparents and one toward Morgue. 'We have the power of a group costume.'

'Manon, you're a fucking genius!' She blew kisses at me over Sash and Green's heads.

The androids had stopped crying and looked up at me with their big, black pearl eyes. 'What'd you have in mind?'

'11 pipers piping.' I held up my hands, defensively this time. 'I'm the only one trying here, so none of y'all had better criticize me.'

Sash and Green shook their turbaned heads, pulling apart. 'No, no, we can work with that. How do you like your vapes?'

'Ew.' I couldn't help it. I really thought the future would've gotten over vaping.

Morgue held up one palm. Everyone looked at her and she curled four fingers and wagged her pointer. 'Squad solidarity is paramount. Forget the smoke.'

'Here, here,' said the Alloparents, throwing their arms up and sweeping them down before their overlord. Morgue was the sum of all my middle age goals and ones I'd never thought to aspire to.

Sash and Green crossed their arms and leaned against each other back-to-back, resting their heads on each other's shoulders. 'Well...the Avalon's design is complex but too minimal to handle sophisticated sound sense. You could pick a design and we'll wire it for fantastical fractals to match the tempo.'

'Kaleidoscopic,' said Morgue.

She picked a black, clingy sheath with a sheer, sleeveless top and a sheer mermaid tail. The black shoes had wedges on the back for stability but open faces with stronger-than-they looked ribbon straps. Sash and Green promised to carve the wedges since the tail was dark enough to hide a stain but sheer enough to show detail. 'No one will mistake you for anything less than THE Court squad.'

Morgue scanned her ear and the tag she wore on a silver chain. 'Super.'

The payment system counted off from her clothes ration list and added raw material rations to the design company's list as well as miscellaneous rations to Sash and Green's joint personal list. The Sovereign Court's financial department automatically registered a copy of the transaction. All of the Court's departments were run by A.I. because their programming was unfraudable but employed humans except for the Department of Defense, so Mauve and now Alter were pretty much the military dictators of a communist society.

It was almost hard to believe we'd come so far and not all at. I was all up for breaking the cycle with Myrddin, but somehow making sure a few people didn't get in each other's business or kill each other didn't seem like the way to do it. Someone had to talk to that dude but after the party.

I sprayed a single red chalk stripe on my hair. It was my cockscomb to let everyone know I felt the man in me tonight. I didn't always wear makeup as a man, but since tonight was a special social event, I'd swapped my makeup for a natural palette to hide the blemishes. I handed the spray chalk to the staffbot straightening the hemp toilet paper rolls in a stall. 'Make sure this gets back to my room-just put it on the vanity.'

I jogged out of the unisex restroom on my wedges carved with the ace of clubs because they were just that sturdy and comfortable. The rest of the club squad and our leader, Morgue the jack of clubs, waited for me lounging on the black and white marble stairs to the ballroom. You could tell which Alloparents pre-partied by the lack of fucks given over PDA. The matching black sheaths looked fantastic on all eleven of us thanks to Sash and Green's subtle detail work.

Morgue with her silver hair in a halo-ish braided ring standing behind her red flower crown looked fucking angelic. I felt so bad about being on cockblock duty that I wished I'd pre-partied hard enough to forget I was doing it on purpose this time. When I drank, I got sober, which meant I was a god to my hipsters crew back home, but this squad struck me as a lot more unironic in their appreciation for the lower things in life. Three of the Alloparents started feeling each other up just to hammer in the point to my already guilted out brain.

'Hey, we got this,' said Morgue, giving me the zero bump.

I returned it as sincerely as I could manage. 'Let's do this.'

The staffbots opened the elephant-sized double doors on Morgue's signal. As the ace, I stepped into the near-darkness first and posed on one knee with my outside arm on the knee and my inside arm bent 90 degrees over my hip. The spotlight brought me out of a silhouette into full color. I smouldered disinterestedly.

Two through ten followed, their poses lit one after the other. Morgue came last, head and arms raised to the sky, palms welcoming the divinity she already carried. Then the spotlights went out. The music that had faded out for our entrance came back with the tempo of an audience clapping for an encore. A pitchfork lightning pattern spread from the top of my solid sheath to its hem in time. It vanished off mine and reappeared on next. One by one, we rained down lightning. The lightning disappeared off Morgue and the ballroom lights returned to their club norm. The crowd went wild, whooping, whistling, and applauding.

Morgue and I gave each other the zero bump-this one was genuine. Sash and Green put us on Avalon-tier by letting us bring the whole storm. Fast songs brought out rain on all of us, but slow songs were the best, bringing out flicking flames that tapered up the sheath. I still couldn't believe they'd almost gone with vaping with how fucking iconic these had turned out.

I followed Morgue onto the dancefloor. Elate and Limerick leaned against a booth, drinking cocktails out of coconut shells with flowers made of fruit. Morgue headed in their direction, angling more toward Limerick. I brushed my hand over hers and she stopped, throwing her head over her shoulder.

The ancestors did that totes uncalled for thing they always did when you touched someone, pulling up a list of ways they could help you be a creeper and pump personal info out of someone without their knowledge. I told them to fuck off and chill for the duration of the ball. 'I'm Club 1, so does that mean I get the first dance?'

Morgue's wide green eyes darkened to match her sultry green eyeshadow with silver glitter. 'You better dance good, Ace.'

She took my hand, and I spun her into me, taking both hands. She actually whispered a gasp, and I was so glad she couldn't see me because I was grinning like a damned fool. My mom was a dance teacher, so I'd trained just hard enough to avoid embarrassing her-I never remembered the language, but I the feeling down.

The Alloparents cleared a space around us. I spun her out to take her hands. The song changed to one with a slow, waltzy tempo that made our sheaths to burn. Morgue had the right tension in her hands but looked to me for the lead. I moved her right hand to my back and lengthened her left arm. I took her out onto the floor. She laughed when I spun her and even harder when I switched our positions and did a sexy torso circle. If I'd had enough balance to dip myself, I would've.

The song ended, and I passed her hand to Club 2. She still laughed, probably because she hadn't realized I'd set up her for nine more dances in the hopes she'd be too tired to bone. Long story short, I shouldn't have underestimated the cardio of someone who regularly participated in 10-person orgies. I'd even seen her abs-she had porn abs.

By the end of nine songs, though, Limerick sat at a booth, sipping uniced whiskey. Unfortunately, Elate wasn't with him. She was doing a frankly amazing pole/yoga routine to show off all the ways the Avalon could drape her body with fog.

Morgue sauntered over and slid into the booth opposite him. 'Heya, new brother.'

I scooched in after her, pressing heavily on the faux leather for maximum squeak. 'Limerick, right? I'm from the U.S., too.'

Morgue leaned her forehead on her hand. 'That explains a lot.'

Limerick smiled and put down his whiskey, folding his hands like one of those students who liked to sit in the front row. 'Do I hear an inner Atlantean accent?'

'Dead right. You?'

'Tricity, Tennessee.'

'Tell me about it,' said Morgue. Thank god she hadn't added stud to the end of that. I hadn't thought she'd had that much will against her thirst in her.

'My mom took me and my dog up to Tricity to camp out one summer. Some sick fuck shot Old Atticus with a BB gun.'

'I'm sorry about your dog.'

'Yeah...we had the eye removed, but it was too late. The sepsis had gotten into his bloodstream.' I pushed his whiskey glass off its cork coaster stamped with the Court's golden eagle and used it to dab my eye.

Morgue mouthed 'what the fuck' behind her hand. Unlike Morrow, she kept her fingers closed so Limerick couldn't see. I pretended not to see either.

'He died on the Fourth of July,' I sobbed into the coaster.

'Oh, god. Can I get you a drink?'

I put down the coaster, smoothing out the fold I'd made in the middle. 'I've had enough alcohol, thanks. Just a soda's fine. A cola, if they have it.'

Limerick waved over a staffbot and placed my order. 'You are a true Georgian. Would you like anything, sister?'

'An appletini and a side of nitrous oxide, if they have it,' she said around a closed-tooth smile.

He only ordered the appletini. The staffbot returned with our drinks almost immediately. I guzzled my cola through the recycling-triangle-print straw while Morgue chatted with him or tried too. I slurped every last drop, the slowly melting ice cubes extending my efforts.

Limerick laughed when I finally tied my straw in a knot. 'I see you've come up for air, or is conversation more your draw?'

I clapped my hands to my temples like I'd gotten a brain freeze. 'Woah, flashback.'

'Please tell me it's not about another pet,' said Morgue.

I pressed my palms against my tall, wet glass on its coaster. 'No, my dad.'

'Did he love cola, too?' asked Limerick.

'He loved it too much.' My dad walked out on my mom and me after she refused to use her credit to get a loan for his car, so he deserved the ignominiest death. We hadn't heard from him since, so anything I said might've been true anyway. 'He got into a cola chug and drank so much it just,' I flung open my fist and made a popping sound. 'Then it was just mom and me.'

Limerick's jaw hung open. 'I'll let you have a moment.' He left the booth, whiskey and all, and walked toward his wife.

'Yeah, take a moment, Manon.' Morgue stood up on the booth, stepped onto the table, and jumped off. She pushed past dancers all the way to the doors.

I held my cold, wet glass to my forehead. I'd done it, yay? I felt like shit, like a dispenser of the sticky, sugary shit used to make cola except I hadn't been cleaned since purchase and I was full of ants.

I looked at the dance floor through the water and misted glass. Alter and Baozhu hadn't come to Alter's own pre-coronation ball, but even Elate seemed less interested in her child's return from the dead and more in having a good time. Baoyu wasn't here either, but Gigi was, talking to Lathe in a corner instead of dancing. She'd finally ditched her blankety-blank white for some color with a feathery, flappery indigo, black, and violet dress.

Nia sat in a booth with Mauve and squad, drinking and giggling. Enid looked fly as fuck in her vested pantsuit. She did a street dance off with two dudes the exact same height in dark gold eagle masks, one in a suit like hers and one in a dress, at the center of a circle of the beefiest cheerleaders. Agreeance was one more no show.

Myrddin laid practically naked on one side of the bar, the body for Morrow and Vivid's body shots. I put down the glass. That was way more than I needed to see. I pushed through the dancers out of the ballroom. My sheath faded to black.

It took twenty minutes to walk back to the apartment-thank god for the comfy wedges. I didn't feel better, only hotter and stickier from the hell-spa humidity. I looked up the shaft of the glass elevator. Morgue had taken it to the penthouse.

I broke down and let the ancestors phase me and give me a boost up into her apartment. She'd shut the bedroom's golden doors. I could've waltzed through like this, but I turned off the phasing and knocked instead. 'Morgue, it's me.'

She didn't tell me to fuck off or anything. Her silence churned the cola in my stomach worse than a raft of ants. I broke into a sweat despite the climate control and lack of activity.

'Morgue, I'm so sorry I was such a fucking cockblock, but Myrddin put me up to it and then Morrow said there'd be international crisis if you got it on with Limerick-'

'That was on purpose?' she screamed. 'How dare you. How fucking dare you.'

'I had to! You're too fucking amazing, Morgue. If I hadn't been there, I can guarantee you Limerick would be a dog at your feet right now. If you said the word, he'd break contract with Elate faster than my dad chugged cola.'

I waited, waited, counting the seconds. I lost track after six or seven and started over.

'Really?'

I pumped one fist in the air, careful not to scratch my new nails on the gold. It had to have been Elate. 'Elate's got it all, but you do, too. You're a socialite-you are literally living the dream. The Alloparents? Love you. Your kids? Love you. You're just as iconic.'

The doors opened. Morgue sat on the bed, her silver hair flowing like fog over her shoulders. She'd changed out of her dress, left on the floor, into what passed for normal clothes here, a bubblegum pink, sleeveless, slit-leg robe.

I picked her matching flower crown off the vanity and handed it to her. She looked away but took my hand in both of hers and raised it over her head. I coronated her. 'All hail Morgue, Life Queen of the Sovereign Court.'

She threw herself around my shoulders. 'All hail Manon, International Crisis Averter of the Sovereign Court.'

We stayed that way until she stopped shaking. We pulled apart.

'I'm going to get some air.'

I nodded and sat on the bed, winded from relief-crisis averted, indeed.

She laughed. 'Feel free to sleepover. I'll my guard know I've got a guest.'

She waved, curling her fingers. The doors closed behind her.

I dropped back on the bed and grabbed a golden pillow. I pulled it down over my face and less sighed than loudly expelled all the air in my body out of my mouth. I screamed-that was the word. Wind rushed into the room. I pushed myself up. Agreeance stood in the doorway, the pillow between us.

He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again, giving the redness time to drain from his face. 'That was close.'

'What?'

He dropped to one knee to pick up the pillow. He had to turn his head up to look at me. It was cute. He was cute. 'I almost attacked you when I couldn't see your face. I thought you were Limerick for a sec.'

He held the pillow out to me with both arms. I smoothed the pillow out with my hands without taking it. 'Sounds like we could both do with a destressor.'

'If you have a prescription, just give it to a staffbot and they'll-'

'Sex. Do you want to have sex with me.'

Agreeance's face exploded red. 'Here? I mean, it's not that I wouldn't like to have sex-I mean, you're really attractive, but I've never had sex before, and I wouldn't want to disappoint you or-'

I held up a palm. 'If you do, close the door and we'll take it real easy. If you don't, close the door but leave first.'

He took several breaths. He walked to the door and turned around. 'Do you know this thing called "pegging"?'

I gave myself a mental zero bump. 'I imagine this room's fully equipped for that. If it's not, we can just call a staffbot, right?'

He nodded and closed the door.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Baoyu, July 6, 3110 C.E.

I walked into Gigi's library to see her sailing the length of the room attached the rolling ladder by a single hand and foot with a bagel in her free hand and a little bot that looked like an overturned trashcan rolling after her to vacuum the crumbs. She wore dark violet leggings and a tight, sleeveless black tunic. She hadn't touched mourning white since the return of Alter, Lathe, and Key.

The ladder slowed by design as it approached the end of the track beside the 'tree' encasing the adjoining door to the Records Department. Anything indoors or weaved around the trams was an artificial but still solar-powered carbon dioxide converter. They could be trusted not to grow out of hand, or at all, and anchored the soil. They could not, however, accelerate decomposition nor take nutrients from organic matter.

She popped the last leg of the bagel in her mouth and waved at me before hopping off. She held out her hands to the bot, who passed a vacuuming tube over them. As the head and only librarian, her demand for clean hands before handling the books was law, but she had no objections to eating, drinking, smoking, or book forts as long as no books were harmed in the process.

I stepped with both feet onto the rolling ladder on the other side of the main doors and used the ancestors' push app. I wore the tighter tunic and leggings, her condition for riding as opposed to using the ladders. I hopped off on the other side of the tree door and saluted. 'Guardian Baoyu, reporting for duty.'

Her wide, sapphire-lipped mouth flattened, but the line couldn't hide the curve of her smile. 'Is that what they're calling babysitters these days?'

She turned and walked toward the seating area where the staffbots left their white ceramic with blue ink art. Despite a frighteningly clear memory even while high, anything I'd said could easily have been taken for induced ramblings, even the things I couldn't remember. Fine, fine, everything was fine.

We sat on black box stools stamped with a circle of white ravens on either side of the loaded table. I'd just come from a run and shower, so I slathered my bagel with peanut butter to satisfy the memory of my coach looking over my shoulder.

Gigi placed blueberries in an equally spaced ring around her plate with one hand while sipping tea from a cup, not a mug, in her other. 'Vivid told me Alter's mum isn't staying for the coronation tomorrow, but this time it's because she's scheduled for a film festival in Vienna.'

There was nothing I could say: this was simply too far outside my business. The fact that the second-in-command intelligence officer regularly gave away intelligence was mildly concerning, but I couldn't risk offending Gigi by disparaging her best friend. I had to change the topic, fast. 'Did she mention anything about Lathe?'

'No,' she said, snapping the biscuit, not cookie, in her hand into halves. One fell into her tea. The other fell on the floor. The bot rolled over and silently vacuumed it up. 'Why do you ask?'

'Mr-Myrddin, is supposed to be Lathe's guardian.'

She fished out the soggy, crumbling biscuit with a spoon. She winced, sticking out her tongue, and held it out for the bot. 'He couldn't have picked a better person to guard, then.'

'What do you mean?'

'Myrddin never leaves Vivid's side during work hours, so she took him on as her apprentice.'

It'd been easier to force him into a work and confidentiality agreement than to work around him. Now he had contractual obligation helping him avoid the exact job he'd forced the five of us into. I tore the halves of my bagel into fourths and eighths.

'It's fine. Lathe's been taking care of himself since we were kids.'

It was the first time I'd ever heard her open up about Lathe. I couldn't waste this opportunity, but I couldn't afford to screw it up either. 'What was it like growing up here?'

'Are you joking?' I'd made a mistake. 'I'm Welsh.'

She sounded offended. I'd made an irreparable mistake. I shoved an eighth of a bagel in my mouth for time. I tried to swallow, but it turned out it'd been a fourth.

I couldn't breathe. The ancestors swam in my head as blurred and unfocused as everything else through my tearing eyes.

I couldn't see Gigi's head. A heavy tube pinned me to the chair. I gagged on the second. It reached down my throat and retracted. The first tube released me. Sweet, sweet air cooled my burning lungs, but I'd have to wait out the sickening, tension-induced ache in my throat and ribs.

Gigi crouched next to me, a hand halfway between us. 'Baoyu?'

Or maybe I wouldn't have to wait. Maybe I my mistake wasn't irreparable. 'Do you mind if I take a hit? My appetite's not coming back without it.'

She grinned and pulled joint paper out of her shirt pocket, handing it to me like it was a handkerchief. Gigi looked at the bot who'd saved my life beside her. 'You heard the man.'

It reverse-vacuumed a transparent but biodegradable bag of marijuana out of a tube. I patted it's flat top in thanks, mentally designating the little janitor Pot Bot.

Gigi opened the glass doors of the balcony and crawled onto the hemp-net hammock floor. I walked on the closely knotted diamonds, but a light breeze kicked up and my arms flailed. I dropped down onto my hands and knees before I fell.

The balcony overlooked the Court's massive open-air courtyard. It contained groves of real trees and two gardens, one floral and one herbal, as well as a pond that could contend as a small lake. Gigi's rookery occupied the corner at one end of the balcony's rail. She'd installed cubbies on the opposite corner for the ravens to keep their 'toys.' The ravens themselves weren't here and probably out hunting or making mischief.

I laid beside her but in the opposite direction. She'd already rolled the joint but saved me the first hit. I passed it back to her. 'I'm not from here either. Never, never imagined I'd wind up here.'

She passed it and I took a second hit. I'd have to track my intake so I wouldn't get too fogged up. 'At least your community didn't marry you off.'

'Why'd they pick you? Not Lathe?'

'Trainees are expendable. Adepts aren't. They hadn't expected Lathe would follow me.' Gigi folder her arms behind her head. 'What about you Mr. Alleged Foreigner? How'd you wind up in this cesspool of decadence.'

I hadn't taken that big a hit, but I couldn't help coughing. That'd been a first: most people assumed the opposite about my sister and me, and in Taiwan they called us mixed-bloods to our faces.

'Myrddin recruited us when we came over for vacation.'

She turned on her side where I couldn't escape her birdy black gaze. 'What's the deal with Myrddin?'

'Uh, no deal.' I'd lost track. I only knew I'd had too much because everything felt warmer and fuzzier. I opened my mouth and let the joint fall through a diamond. 'What deal?'

'He's a teen who hired a small foreign army of powerful psibers and placed them beside key Court psibers thanks to some unknown connection to Counselor Morrow. History says we're one move away from a coup.'

I hadn't thought of it that way until she'd said it, but Gigi was right: the five of us were pawns. Mr. E might've been an unwitting one. Vivian had been the one to seal him away, and now he was back as a dog at her side. I had to drag him away long enough to get some answers.

Gigi was still staring at me, eyes narrowed so they appeared entirely black. I hoped I hadn't said any of that aloud. 'I don't remember who was talking.'

'You were about to convince me Myrddin isn't out to usurp the Court for his or another's gain.'

It seemed I was safe. 'Right, the deal of Myrddin, Myrddin's deal. Well, he's...you know the trees that aren't trees? Let's say those are psibers. Myrddin's a tree tree.'

'A genetic psion?'

'Yeah, I guess. Morgue and Vivid used to be tree trees, too, but only Morgue remembers.' Although, if magic enabled aberrant reincarnation, then Vivid probably remembered as well. 'Anyway, they want to make that possible again by making sure people don't die. Pretty sure it's the opposite of a coup.'

'And what're you?'

'I'm a graft on Myrddin's tree tree, a witch by proxy.' I stretched my arms over my head and flicked my fingers making 'pew, pew' noises. 'This is code name: stays between you and me, by the way.'

'No shit.' She pulled another paper out of her pocket and summoned Pot Bot with a wave.

My stomach didn't growl so much as send reverberations through the entire net like a soon-to-be-extinct arachnid species.

'If you're a real proxy witch, Mr. Alleged Proxy Witch, conjure yourself some food.'

I undulated my arms above me and chanted: 'Cool baboon blood firm charm good.'

According to the ancestors, I couldn't conjure something from nothing, but because I'd physically interacted with my bagel and it was 'within short range' and it wasn't held down by anything other than gravity, I could summon it. I commanded the pieces to hover over my head to pluck at my leisure.

Gigi jolted straight up. 'Baoyu-say your prayers, Homo sapiens.'

Bolts of black flashed across my face. I shrieked and curled and threw my arms over my head.

'Baoyu, are you okay?'

A chorus of tittering laughter came from the corner of the balcony. I uncurled and sat up on my arms. An uncountable unkindness of ravens perched along every edge of the tiered, tapering rookery like they were budding from its silhouette. Gigi hadn't thrown her voice: I'd been threatened by a bagel-thieving raven.

She jerked a thumb over her shoulder and the buds of shadow rose up in a great black wave and threw themselves over the edge of the balcony. I watched through a diamond as the wave fragmented at the edges into individual birds, all laughing Gigi's laugh. They'd probably been watching us the entire time.

'I'm not high enough for this to be okay.'

'That's the worst form of resignation I've ever heard.'

'And?'

She rolled a new joint. You didn't need to say your prayers when you could smoke them.

Gigi and I hit the couches as soon as we came back from the airfield to sleep off our psychosomatic effects. Pot Bot woke us three hours before the ball. Gigi groggily excused herself to get ready, leaning heavily on Pot Bot's proferred tube.

I checked the clock display over the main doors. The computer screen's font and background matched the pattern of the bark and the texture of the leaves, so the numbers appeared as part of the artificial, door-encasing tree.

At five o'clock, Mr. E and Vivid typically stopped in at Records before ending their day. I stepped onto the ladder, holding on with both hands, and rode it to the side door. I didn't have a tag, so I couldn't initiate the scanning process to unlock it, but they had to open one door to leave.

I rode the ladder on the other side all the back to the main doors and left the library. I sat on the floor of the hall across from the double doors to Records. They opened thirty minutes later and I jumped to my feet, fully coordinated.

Vivid said hello, closing her eyes as she smiled. Myrddin nodded, smiling at her.

'Sorry, Vivid. Could I borrow your PA for a sec?'

Her grin grew toothy and her eyes opened to blue slits. 'My pleasure.'

I took Mr. E by the bicep and pushed him back into the Records room before he could protest. Vivid shut the door behind her as he did. We were in a white, tan, and blue-green reception area again, except this one had a reception desk and an A.I. receptionist eating something while browsing their tablet with a finger.

I approached the desk, dragging Mr. E backward alongside me. 'Is there a secure meeting room available?'

The A.I., 'Hello, I'm Cups' on the nametag, popped a dispassionate bubble and pointed across their face with a pinky without moving either arm off the desk. 'First door.'

I dragged Mr. E down the hall to the right and sealed the first door behind us. I let him go, but stood in front of the door. Mr. E hopped onto the conference table, scowling and shaking out his arm. 'The heck's your problem, Bran?'

Right, he'd never even bothered to learn our names. 'You are my problem. You set us up to do all your work while you just drool beside Vivid, who, by the way, was the one who trapped you for all those centuries in the cave.'

'No, that was Vivian.'

'Yeah, sure. Now we're the ones who're trapped. Do you even have enough life force to get us back?'

'That's beside the point-'

'No, you listen to me. This is THE point of contention: I'm sick of your behavior. If you don't start pulling your weight, you might as well send us all back right now.' My heart pounded in my chest and in my ears. I had to pant to catch my breath.

'To be totes honest, the downlow is pretty down and pretty low.'

I sat at the head of the table, steepling my fingers against my completely hairless chin. 'Hit me.'

'Time travel only works in one direction.'

Every drop of moisture evaporated from my mouth. It didn't matter how much I'd eaten: my gut emptied to a pit of pure acid. I wanted to scream, but I didn't have the air. My eyes dropped stinging tears instead.

'You have to tell the others.' My shoulder muffled the words, so I couldn't tell if he'd heard me. I lifted my head.

He'd heard. He'd just been shaking his head. The light shined gently off his even pate, but it dug black into his face. His eyes were pits so dark I couldn't tell if they were open or closed.

'You have to.'

'If I we could make a difference, I would.'

'What?'

'This world's already dead.'

Mr. E woke the wall computer and pulled out a 3D globe. He highlighted the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn in gray. A key popped up in a floating box. Gray meant inhospitable to organic life. He highlighted the ocean between the Arctic and Antarctic circle in an ugly yellowish green, the color of stomach acid. It appeared in the key as anoxic. We didn't have ocean dead zones anymore. We had a dead ocean with two isolated life zones.

'Once all the plants are gone, we'll be, too. Magic can't fix this.'

'Counselor M thinks it can.'

'Morgan only cares about getting her magic back-I don't blame her. I super regret giving you kids mine now that I know where this is all going. But, hey, I've only got about fifteen or sixteen years left. Might as well enjoy them.'

I slumped against the wall, my shoulder taking a bite-like chunk out of the globe. I slid all the way down to the carpet. It was too short to grab and too tight to dig into. Nothing was remotely fine. There was no point hiding my tears.

Mr. E crouched beside me, resting his hairless chin on his laced fingers. 'I get this kinda kills the party mood. That's why I didn't plan on telling you until...ever.'

'I have to tell them.'

'I hate to say it like this, but how well do you know them?'

'What are you talking about?'

'I knew you as Bran, guardian of Britain. The big girl was Efnysien, horse mutilator, mass murderer, and wrecker of Ireland. Branwen died of a broken heart.'

I had to tell them we couldn't go back. They'd inevitably find out, and they'd probably be furious if they found out I'd learned first and hadn't told them. I couldn't predict how they'd react once they knew Mr. E had taken our past and our future. Enid seemed too sensible to go on a murderous rampage, but Azhu dying from severe depression sounded much more plausible.

'Anything else I should know while I'm down?'

'Manawydan mercy-decapitated you but you kept talking. Then they buried your head, but Arthur dug you out and kinda tossed you aside, but Manawydan became one of his knights anyway.'

'Very helpful, thanks.'

'Anything for you, bud. Btw, it's been such a relief talking to you while you're attached to a body.' Mr. E folded his hands, tapping his long index fingers together. 'I'd really appreciate it if, when you tell the others, you'd ask them not to kill me.'

He didn't deserve any kind of response. We sat side by side on the silencing carpet, my eyes on the wall computer's raised-type clock. He tapped his index fingers in time with the blinking colon. Five minutes, ten, fifteen.

I pushed off the wall, stalking to the door. 'Fine.'

'Oh, thank-'

'You owe me.' Unfortunately, I had no way to slam the future doors behind me, forcing me to go out quietly.

Just the thought of attending the ball left my stomach roiling. I walked back to the apartments instead. The ancestors helped me ward the rooms of my relatives for the next 24 hours so I'd know when they arrived. I needed to speak with all of them at the earliest convenience, preferably before the coronation.

I laid on the bed, staring straight up without seeing anything. The memories of my conversation with Mr. E lingered like as a skull-splitting headache in the center of my forehead. I couldn't move without hurting. I couldn't think without hurting. The answer was to fade and fade and fade until I could fit behind the flat words that protected me: fine, fine, everything was fine.

I summoned an unbreakable glass water bottle and the painkillers Gigi recommended and shared with me for migraines out of a cubby carved into the wall. Pain was only real when you felt it, so there was no point in ever perceiving it.

Once it had gone, clarity returned. Everything was not fine. I'd been wrong, so wrong. Pain diminished your world until it became something you could completely understand. There was you, there was pain, and there was your desire not to feel pain.

Now I was back, a child in a thousand year old body, and nothing made sense. I didn't want to die, but I didn't know how I was supposed to live while staring the extinction of all life in the face. Nothing made sense because the knowledge had taken the meaning out of everything.

No wonder Mr. E had reverted to a mindless pursuit of pleasure: that was the meaning he'd given his life. Feeling was his only reality in the face of death.

I'd probably die before I found my own meaning. Until I found it, I guess I could live to find it. That was the best I could do. That was all I could do.

Fine, fine, everything was fine.

Azhu set off the first alarm. I immediately went to their room to get them. They weren't wearing party clothes, like me. Alter hadn't wanted to attend.

They changed into pajamas and grabbed a pillow and blanket. We phased into my room and waited for the others.

Nia returned a little after midnight in full party regalia. She convinced Azhu to take a bubble bath with her in the shared, first floor bathroom, while we waited. They returned two hours later, giggling and smelling like lavender and honey. They looked so alive that I regretted turning them down. For them, this might've been an unexpected detour, but it was still a vacation.

Anon, surprisingly not the last to return, arrived an hour later. 'Gimme a sec.' They flew up to Morgue's penthouse and back in minutes. They'd showered at Morgue's, so they joined us in my room after changing into pajamas. Anon sat on the floor between Nia and Azhu, leaning against my bed, and pulled out their tablet.

Enid arrived within the hour with a black vest and dress pants over one shoulder and an orange, odor-neutralizing gym bag over the other. She tossed both of them into her room without entering.

Enid and I sat down on Azhu's blanket with the others. We formed the same five-pointed circle we had in Mr. E's cave. The familiarity didn't make this any easier. I gripped the knees of my pajama pants so they'd absorb the sweat off my palms.

'I talked to Myrddin.'

'Thank god,' said Anon, reaching for their tablet. 'It's about time he got on Lathe's case.'

I gently pushed the tablet level to the floor. 'There's more, but I can't tell you unless you swear on the ancestors not to harm him.'

'What's Emrys done now?' asked Enid.

'Is he alright?' asked Nia.

'Oh my fucking god. He didn't agree to start pulling weight-he just gave you an excuse.'

I had no idea how Anon could be that perceptive this early in the morning after hours of partying. Maybe they were a scary drunk. Maybe it was experience. Focus, it wasn't important right now.

'Do you swear or not?'

'I swear,' said Nia, then Enid, Anon, and Azhu: our seating order.

'Myrddin didn't randomly give us his power. We're reincarnations of guardians of Britain and friends of his. That's why he assumed we'd help him. That's why he assumed we wouldn't mind that time travel is only possible in one direction.'

That was the gentlest way of breaking it to them that I'd practiced. I looked at Azhu, searching for any hint of onset depression. My twin closed their eyes and shook their head. I should've remembered how invisible depression could be. They pulled their pillow out from under them and covered their face.

Anon stood up. The tablet in their lap clattered on the thin blanket. They backed all the way into the vanity before collapsing on the floor in silent tears. 'He killed my mom.'

'What?' said Enid.

Nia placed a shaking hand on Enid's arm. 'We lost our past. Everything, everything is gone.'

'No. No, Emrys brought us here. He or we can bring ourselves back together. Anything done can be undone. If he doesn't know how, maybe Morrow does.'

'He wanted to break the cycle and save Arthur's life,' I said. 'If he could go back to the past and stop it, there'd be no point to bring us a thousand years into the future.'

Enid jerked to her feet, teeth and fists clenched. 'He killed them.'

Anon's quiet sobs turned to wails. Nia flung her thin arms around her sister's muscled calves. 'You swore an oath to the ancestors. They'll kill you, too, if you break it.'

'Fuck the ancestors!'

I held the door shut thanks to the ancestors. Enid slammed the flat of her fist against the door and phased through, thanks to the ancestors. I followed her out and 'tackled' her in the 'courtyard.' If we'd been corporeal, she could've kicked me aside like a tumbleweed, but we were two incorporeal beings somehow frozen by pulling in opposite directions.

Neither of us could hear anything or each other while incorporeal. I closed my mouth slowly and took one hand off her arm. She closed her mouth and relaxed her arm. We unphased at the same time.

'Enid-'

Her eyes rolled back into her head. She passed out on the grass. I crouched and grabbed her ankle. I was about to phase us when she sat up and shoved me. I rolled over and backward like a tumbleweed.

She started sniffling as I sat up, rubbing where I'd hit my head. Enid had crossed her arms. They shook where she held her biceps.

I walked slowly toward her, arms up. I sat down beside her. 'Want to hear something funny?'

She kept crying without saying anything, but she'd stopped shaking.

'Mr. E called your past incarnation the "mass murderer."'

Enid choked out a blubbery laugh, forming and popping a bubble of either saliva, mucous, or both. 'That piss-art prick.'

I laughed, too. I had no idea what she'd meant. It didn't matter. The laughter and the crying died down. We stayed in the grass, first sitting then lying, under the rising sun.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Baozhu, July 7, 3110 CE

The thing about depression meds was they didn't make you happy. They were a gateway drug to happiness. Over time, they took your brain chems to a level where you could feel happiness if you were in a situation where you'd expect to feel it. You could see the problem here-Anon and Nia did. They didn't ask for shares again.

We cried together because crying alone would've been the nail in the coffin. We were the only family we had left. We threw out the word 'cousin' and the distance it kept between us. The only words we deemed acceptable were 'family,' 'sibling,' and 'sister.' Ayu hadn't returned with Enid, so we didn't bring up 'brother' but accepted it by nonverbal consensus.

Nia fell asleep first. Anon and I slept on either side of her, still on the floor. It was a little cooler here, anyway.

Counselor M came to wake us for the coronation. Ayu and Enid stood behind and beside her with puffy, baggy eyes. Grass peeked out from the backs of their hair and pajamas.

I was too tired to walk, so I turned on the phasing and floating apps to get to my room. I had to turn them off to change clothes. My fingers fumbled with the buttons. I got the first two, but I needed three to pull the nightgown over my head. I couldn't get the last one.

Tears stung my eyes. I wiped at them with the back of one hand, but they kept coming. I opened my mouth and every scream I'd ever screamed came out, muffled by the flood of mucous draining from my nose and throat. I held the button in one hand and kept wiping with the other. A hand scoop had never won against a flood, and I couldn't change that.

I waited until I'd screamed myself hoarse and coughed and spluttered. I coughed so hard I thought I'd puke. I only spat and splattered snot and tears all over the floor and nightgown and the edge of the vanity table where I sat.

I swiveled on the stool toward the table, careful to avoid the mirror. If I saw myself, I'd start crying again-I'd probably throw up for sure. I pulled out the drawers and took out all the recyclable plastic containers. I lined them up on the table in the order that I'd taken them out and opened them one by one. I found scissors with a single, quirked eyebrow over their eye holes, emptied to fit fingers.

I put them on my left hand and held the button out with my right. One snip cut it off from the rest of the nightgown. I tossed it onto the vanity, but it was lighter than expected and plinked against the mirror. It sailed over my shoulder-whatever.

I stood, curled, and pulled the nightgown over my head with my right hand. It caught on my left side, so I yanked instinctively. Then I remembered the scissors. The tension between my hand and the pjs ended with the thick, zipping rip of fabric.

I left it where it'd fallen on the floor. I dropped the scissors on the pile. My new room looked as messy as my old room as I'd left it before coming to Loegria. I wondered if my parents had cleaned it or left it. I was sorry that'd been the last choice I'd left them.

The tears clouded my eyes, but I could see them in my head. They aged together. They adopted one dog. Two more dogs. The dogs died. My parents wanted three more dogs but were too old and tired to take care of that many. They got a cat instead. The cat outlived them. I couldn't picture my parents dying. They just got so old that they dissolved into the hazy background of our apartment behind them. I guessed I couldn't picture a cat aging either.

Maybe I couldn't picture my parents dying because they'd dissolved and joined the ancestors. 'Mom? Dad?' I asked the ancestors.

'We are all of the blood.'

Whatever the fuck that meant. It had an affirmative kind of ring to it, so I took it as a 'yes.' Maybe being a hivemind made it impossible to give straight answers because everyone had their own way of saying things, and they had to take an average.

The cat had dissolved, too. If some of the minds weren't human, that would really skew the average. Still, having my parents accessible in some form was better than nothing at all. They needed a better name than 'the ancestors.'

By the time Counselor M knocked on my door, the only thing I'd come up with was Carents, cat-parents. I'd have more time to think at the coronation.

Counselor M had gotten everyone their tags by now, including one for me because I hadn't mentioned the one from Cauldron, so we took the tram. The coronation building looked like a six-story tower surrounded by trees and straight up walls of vegetation. The gaping doorway opened up to a stadium shaded by translucent blue solar panels all the way around the six-story-tall-but-much-longer ellipse.

Almost everyone had their logs on unless they were A.I. Counselor M said log-activated augmented reality helped everyone find their seats, which was helpful because the Court had invited all of Loegria. The best seats were still courtside, but since I was Alter's guardian, Counselor M arranged for me to stand in the court with her and Court Security. She'd even marked my spot with a little taped X since I didn't have the tech to tell me where to go.

The glowing Counselor M stood under a red stone arch wound with wire vines that rooted in the shiny, basketball-court floor panels. The security team in their golden eagle masks and eggplant uniforms stood to her right. I stood on her left in the same bright green, formal outfit as her. The suit was a sleeveless one-piece that ended in lacy shorts. A solid white cross wrapped around the whole thing like a ribbon on a birthday gift. Solid white leggings dropped down from the shorts into tan boots. We wore sheer and lacy white cloaks over the whole thing, hoods up.

The wire-wrapped stone doors at the opposite end of the stadium's major access opened. Alter stood under them, completely shrouded by a heavy, dark blue cloak. The crowd, literally all of Loegria, fell silent.

Alter walked forward. The cloak floated up behind them, one fold at a time. Their bare feet left inky, indigo prints in the wood that bled out to premade boundaries, forming a carpet that followed but never reached their feet. The cloak unfolded higher and higher until it formed a spiky, segmented pair of moth-like wings. They were too thick and heavy to be a butterfly's.

Alter hit the intersection of the major and minor axes and all of Loegria gasped. The cloak wings glowed with a soft, pale blue light. They cracked with the light along the edges. Dark blue shards floated off the wings and burned to ash in flowers of silver fire.

The light cracked the wings closer and closer toward Alter's body, leaving behind a gentle torrent of silver fire flowers that never touched the ground. Alter's hood cracked with light. They unveiled in a shower of fire. The light travelled into their sleeves and down the dark blue length of the their robe. Everything broke away and burned in silver flowers.

Alter bowed their head and knelt before Counselor M, ceremoniously nude. The indigo line stopped behind them, but the ink poured into the circumference of a wide circle around all of us around the arch. I turned, tracking its path. Counselor M knew immediately when the circle had closed and spoke without checking over her shoulder.

'Alter, psiber. Mother Lake has measured your strength and deemed you the most worthy of protecting our nation and its people. Testify your strength, so that our citizens shall neither question or doubt the wisdom of Mother Lake.' Counselor M stepped to my side and extended one arm toward the stone arch.

Alter raised their head, staring straight ahead with a face of practiced emotionlessness. I gave them the tiniest fist pump of encouragement. They didn't give any sign of acknowledgment as they stood.

Alter stopped under the arch and placed their palms against the columns on either side. The vines glowed with blue light. Metal screeched against metal, screaming like a car crushed to a cube, as the vines stirred.

They crept off the stone, writhing and screaming and glowing, and curved toward Alter's arms. They wound closer and farther toward Alter's torso. They didn't stop once they'd touched skin. They kept wrapping around Alter's torso and then down their legs, unwinding from the arch. The final metal vines closed over Alter's face. Alter looked more like a statue of black, metal rings, slightly glowing, than a person.

The light blue glow spread from the statue's hands to cover the arch. The light hit the wooden floorboards last and bounced back as an inky indigo. The ink light spread back over the arch and down to the statue through its hands. The ink was so dark that it only seemed to fill in the outer spaces between the rings, making Alter look, tbh, like someone in a winter-thick fullbody latex suit that could double as ski-wear.

Alter's head turned up toward the sky with violent screeches and strains against the metal. An indigo ray shot up from the top of the arch. It flew higher and higher until it hit the normally invisible, eldritch but protective dome over the city of Logres, the rich district, anyway. Ink spilled over the inner area of the dome with a gravitationally impossible symmetry. The stadium fell under the ink's sun-blocking shadow.

I couldn't see anything in the thick, sound-muffling darkness, but I could feel it-a nightmare's darkness that you slowed you down as you ran or dragged you further into water than you could swim. My chest tightened around my beating heart and my breath grew louder and faster.

Lightning flashed and crashed on the inside of the dome. The jagged, silver lines froze against the ink. Shards broke away at the horizon, floating off and burning in flowers of silver fire. The pieces fell away in concentric bands, closing in on the center of the dome and the indigo beam.

The last of the ink shell broke and burned. Silver lightning crashed and froze down the length of the indigo beam. The entire thing broke apart at once, shards exploding outward. They froze in mid-air like one or more of these psibers, maybe Mother Lake Industries, froze them in time.

I reached out to the nearest fragment, an arm's length away from my face. My fingertip softly squeaked against its perfectly smooth surface. The movement knocked the paper-thin shard loose from the suspension, and it floated upward as slow and gentle as my touch. Silver flowers bloomed from both sides. Gray ash fell through the cracks between my fingers as they blew away in a stray breeze.

The whole stadium filled with suspended silver flowers. Alter looked like a topiary that had caught fire just as it had flowered. Their fire flowers burned out too. Alter's arms dropped away from the arch. The vines laid as a ring of black dust around Alter's feet.

Alter lowered their head until they faced straight ahead, their back to the rest of us. 'I have testified.'

Counselor M walked to the ring of ash and stepped backward into it, putting her back to back with Alter. 'If any question or doubt the strength of Alter, psiber, or the wisdom of Mother Lake, speak now or forever hold your peace.'

I counted sixty seconds until Counselor M stepped out of the ring. She faced Alter's back and knelt on both knees. 'All hail Alter, Sovereign of Loegria.'

She touched her forehead to the ring of ash. The security team and everyone in the stands dropped to both knees. I did the same and touched my forehead to the basketball-court flooring. It was surprisingly warm-enough to keep the Sovereign-to-be from getting cold feet, I guessed.

I counted another sixty seconds and looked up. Counselor M had unbent. She gave me a little smile, which was loads more than I'd gotten from Alter, and stood. The security team and I followed her lead.

Alter turned around and stepped over the ash ring. They walked straight to Counselor M. She took off her sheer cloak and handed it to them. Alter wore it open over one shoulder like the cloak you sometimes saw on ancient Greek pottery.

They held out their palm. 'Log, please.'

'Alter, is now really-'

'Please. You know best,' they lowered their voice to threat-level, 'I'm duty-bound.'

Counselor M reached into her boot and pulled out Alter's smoky black log. Alter breathed 'Caliban' to it, and it floated up their eye-level.

They raised their free arm and addressed all of Loegria. 'My first act as Sovereign, again, shall be to neutralize the melties who've taken hold of a Weep over the Red Teeth.'

The crowd cheered as loud as Mother Lake's magic lightning. Alter's arm flopped to their side. They turned their head over their lean, muscled shoulder at me. 'Let's go, Guardian. We have promises to keep.'

Technically, the official job title from Mr. E had been '保姆,' babysitter, but I had bigger nits to pick. 'You seem fine, but my outfit's a wedgie liability.'

One corner of their otherwise completely straight mouth angled upward. 'My second act's to renege the first and get suited up.'

That was the kind of leadership I could follow-a leader who riffed off my humor.

I couldn't stop thinking about what Scabbard had told us as our pack-Alter, Key, Lathe, and me-rode dogbots to the coastline. Alter and Lathe shared the dogbot Cable, and Key and I rode Cavalry. They were faster and more direct than the trams.

Technically, Alter hadn't needed to respond to the Water Extraction Plant or WEP's distress signal personally. I thought they'd rather stay back like Mauve apparently had and work on the genetic experiments so important to them. I thought that's what Alter had done last night when they locked themself in their suite and refused to go to the ball.

They'd never had 'genetic psion' genes available to them, but they'd been very hopeful about seeing an effect after grafting my DNA into different kinds of cells. We'd had to leave all that behind in the apartment, but with all the future's tech, Alter probably had remote access to the lab. Except, now that we were stranded here, it wasn't 'the future' anymore. I might've hugged Key rather than hold her because she loosed one hand from Cavalry's fur to pat my arm. I was very grateful for the mask.

We got off the dogs at the bottom of a rocky and dusty slope. Its incline masked the cliff's sharp drop-off. The WEP sat on an angled platform that levelled the ground under it. It looked like a parking lot not for cars but for warehouses, as though they'd somehow become mobile, possibly sentient, and needed a place to park themselves.

The gridlocked warehouses were roughly three stories high but much, much longer-they stretched out along this whole cliffside. Only two buildings broke the warehousey mold. They looked like horizontal slices from the same, warehouse-diameter cylinder. You could tell they all came from the same WEP, though, because they all wore the same solar panels. Even the platform.

'Is this what takes the salt out of the sea?' I asked.

'And the hydrogen sulfide and puts oxygen back in the water so it doesn't taste like shit,' said Key.

'Don't take off your mask,' said Alter. 'The smell's strong enough to induce vomiting and/or knock-out.'

I had my WTF moment out loud, which actually got me an explanation as Lathe quickly programmed Cable and Calvary with contingency plans using a log and sign language. Almost the entire ocean suffered from the shitstorm combo of perpetually warm waters and eutrophication, a nitrate dump-literally shit in the form of sewage and fertilizer. Bacteria went after the nitrates then the sulfates, turning the ocean into dead and classically Hellish waters.

'Anoxia's great for preservation, though,' said Lathe.

'So if I fall in, you won't have to spruce me up.'

'And the salinity will make you float.'

'Talk about modern convenience.'

As we sneaked up the incline, crouching low to the platform, the pieces clicked. All that crap in the ocean went into the sky. Mother Lake's magic dome protected rich district Logres, and its plants, from the rainy season's acid rain. Everywhere else only supported the hardier, shrubbier stuff and the plant-shaped lights/carbon-dioxide scrubbers.

The Earth seemed really not okay right now, more like dying. We had to break the curse and get magic back like half a millennium ago. I laughed to myself, but I had that blood-draining, stomach-emptying feeling that happened when I went for funny and hit too deep. We were too late. That'd explain why Myrddin hadn't given a rat's ass after we showed up with Lathe.

Alter held up a palm at us behind their back, the stop sign. They pointed at me. As the team phaser, I always recon. I phased and walked through the platform, floating just enough to keep my eyes and the upper half of my skull above the ground. I probably looked like a massive, hazy beetle from a waking dream. No idea if melties dreamed like A.I. did.

All the machinery in this warehousey unit seemed to be running smoothly-clearly not the slaughterhouse. I checked through the parallel lines of units. Androids just walked around, making sure everything was alright. That was potentially a bad sign because if no one had realized the distress signal was still on, then they were all melties. All hundreds of them.

I went back to the others, unphased, and held out my hands, the signal for 'get phased with me.' We linked hands, and I took them to the roof of a warehousey unit.

'What do you want to hear first?' I asked.

Lathe said 'good news' but Alter and Key outweighed him with 'bad news.'

'They're probably all melties, but they haven't fucked anything up aside from leaving the distress signal on.'

'Fuck,' said Alter.

'What?'

'They might have minor melt,' said Key.

They were possibly selectively lethal. A minor melt left the majority of programming intact, but the melted programming made the A.I./melties more vulnerable to meltdown in the future and prone to aberrant behavior, like glitching.

Our options were total party kill or staying for an unknown length of time, risking our lives and testing their parameters for lethal triggers. We put it to a vote. Key and I voted to stay. Lathe voted TPK. We all looked at Alter.

They turned around and walked to the edge of the roof. An A.I./melty in a sunflower bright hardhat walked down the open-air tunnel of warehousey units with a tablet and stylus. Alter jumped off the roof.

I ran. They'd psionically slowed the fall. Landed right in front of Sun Hat. Sun Hat stopped in mid-step, one leg slightly bent above their other knee.

'Are you aware that you've come to work without the proper uniform? I need to see some ID.' They touched the stylus to the tablet. 'Who's your supervisor?'

Alter lifted their tag out of their robes and stepped forward, within reach. Asking for it wasn't wearing improper uniform. It was jumping off a fucking roof in front of a potential danger and handing out your ID still dangling around your throat all alone. They hadn't even told us so we could prepare. Alter just didn't give a shit.

'You...are not on the roster. If you're here to apply for a job, I can get someone to take you to HR.'

'I'm human.'

'You don't look human.'

Alter reached behind their head and took off their mask.

'Alter!' yelled Lathe from my right.

'Fuck!' yelled Key from my left.

I definitely fit into the quiet shock at the center of the Alter-fuck spectrum.

Sun Hat looked up at us with brow frowning and mouth dangling then back at Alter. Our squad leader passed out. Sun Hat knelt by the body, scanning with their tablet. 'You three get down from there.'

Key and Lathe couldn't slow their falling, so I floated us down.

Sun Hat spoke into their tablet, '-pickup on a stranger registering as human and escort for three others. Stranger is a suspected melty. Please notify the psibers.'

'Alter really is a human,' I said as Lathe sat Alter up against their legs and Key put their mask back on.

Sun Hat lowered the tablet. 'Impossible. I saw for myself they were A.I. They've somehow melted in a way that fools low-op tech.'

'How many cases of this have ever been recorded?'

They held up a finger. 'Zero.' They moved and bent the finger under their chin, closer to zero's shape.

'How many cases of A.I. getting melted to read humans as A.I.?'

'More than zero,' they said quietly.

'Sorry, friend.'

Sun Hat plunked down on the concrete, arms limp and legs straight out. Their table skittered to the side. They bumped their hardhat against the edge of the unit. Tears rolled down both gray green cheeks.

I crouched beside them, elbows on my knees. 'What happens now?'

'We wait for the psibers.'

'We're the psibers. Your distress signal's been on since this morning.'

'There was another melty, but they ran out of here-didn't even scan out.'

I nodded. If I'd known Sun Hat better, I'd have pat their shoulder.

'I...know I can't perform my designated task like this, but I don't want to die.'

'Gotcha. Anyone who wants to hurt you is gonna have to go through me.'

'You can't promise them that,' said Lathe, helping Alter to their feet.

'Who melted your memory because I just fucking did. Promise. Not melt.'

That was me asking for a fight. Not that I liked fighting-I cried at the lightest push, but apparently I was the kind of person who'd turn on their own teammates/former housemates/burgeoning friends to keep a promise. Et tu, for real. I was breathing hard and my fists were a little shaky before we'd even started, though.

Lathe passed Alter completely onto Key and walked up to me. Sun Hat scooted and scrambled away on their butt and hands. Lathe reached down and yanked me to my feet. Off my feet. 'You don't know shit about melties, so do us a favor and shut the fuck up.' He dropped me and I bounced against the unit's metal wall.

If I didn't have friendly fire off, I would've given him a real shove, but I didn't. I had to use my only other weapon, common sense. 'You'd really neutralize hundreds of potential glitches? Yeah, I'm pretty unfamiliar with A.I., but it seems like glitches are the only ones able to get outside Mother Lake's control, humans and psibers and Sovereign included.'

I really hoped Alter was conscious and listening and that Lathe supported Alter, not the monopoly. Might've pitched to the wrong person.

Lathe flung their arm out behind them. I slammed into the wall. Yeah, definitely the wrong person.

Key held Alter with one arm and psionically yanked Lathe to her with the other. She slapped his mask hard enough that he fell over. I dropped to ground. I would've laughed if I hadn't been crying.

Two potential glitches in bright blue hard hats broke away from their blue-hatted squad. They helped Lathe to his feet. Another two took Alter from Key and onto a stretcher.

Alter raised one hand from the elbow. 'I'm fine,' they said. The blue hats helped them sit up on their elbows.

Key and Lathe broke off from whatever they'd brought their torsos in contact to do. A blue hat helped me up and another helped Sun Hat. They formed a square around us to march and roll us to HR.

'What's the plan?' asked Lathe.

'Pearl-Baozhu's right,' said Alter.

I pumped my fists in the air.

'The melties are harmless, but they can't stay here.' We had to override their job designation and change their IDs, meaning the real psibers had to link up with all of them.

'There are hundreds of them,' said Key. 'We don't have enough power.'

We marched and rolled into a metal elevator at the bottom of the concrete HR building, the smallest and grayest of all the buildings.

'We have to try,' said Alter.

'We will fucking die.'

'Then I'll do it myself.'

The elevator dinged and opened on the second of the three floors. They marched and rolled us to the first of six medical stations walled with white splatter curtains hanging from rectangular metal bars. It was a lot roomier than the nurse's office and the ER rooms-go communism.

They closed the curtains behind us and left, all except Sun Hat. They collapsed in a metal folding chair, eyes down.

I consulted Carents. 'Nobody has to die, but I might pass out.'

'What've you got?' asked Key.

I couldn't link with the melties, but I could channel magic into the psibers. 'All you have to do is convert, which has to be possible or we couldn't phase.'

'What happens if you pass out?' asked Lathe.

'It's means I'm on empty.'

'So we'll need to disconnect immediately or we'll be sucked dry, too.'

'Great, sounds perfectly fatal,' said Key.

Alter scooted off the stretcher and landed mostly on their feet. They stood up and dusted off their robes. They turned to Sun Hat. 'Where's enough space to fit everyone on the premises?'

We assembled on top of a water storage tanks, forming a giant, winding snake. I was the only one who hadn't linked hands with anyone else. I put my hands on Lathe's back because despite being an asshole, I didn't trust Key not to disconnect prematurely, and I didn't trust Alter to alert the others if I passed out. Deathwish Alter was totes getting a talk from their life guardian once we got back.

'Ready?' I asked.

The psibers sounded off.

'You're up, Carents.' I'd have to remember to pretend to forget I'd said that.

I woke up on a couch in a room that smelled vaguely like the incense my grandparents burned every morning, so probably agarwood mixed with whatever I didn't recognize. I'd never see them again, but the scent was still comforting enough that my tears didn't come back after I wiped them. I was still in my official black robes. My mask was a the dark and shiny red coffee table.

I sat up. Alter pushed their swivel chair away from the weird cells on the 3D wall display of their desktop, their pensive frown cutting through three 3D models. They scooted with their bare feet and stopped between two dark, wicker armchairs with olive cushions. They folded their hands and bit both their lips like a freshman outside the principal's office on the first day of school.

I waited.

They explained that they'd kept me in their room because Counselor M didn't have it bugged, unlike the guest apartments and the medical wing. 'Sorry.'

'You're not fit to command.'

They just stared at me, mouth open like they'd never had their leadership questioned. Which might've actually been the case.

'I was there. I saw you-' I didn't want to say "trying to kill yourself," but yeah, 'not giving a fuck about any of our lives. You're worse than Lathe.'

They blew a sigh up at their asymmetrical strawberry blonde bangs and leaned back in the chair. Freshman to senior in one fell slouch. 'I'm Sovereign, so too damn bad.'

'No. Nobody cares how you rule-Counselor M's got it in the bag, anyway. But protect us, your fucking teammates. That means protecting yourself, too.'

Alter leaned forward on their elbows, forehead in their hands. Now they looked like a hundred years had broken their back. 'It's impossible to move forward under Morrow.' They were even speaking like a hundred-year-old cryptid.

'Did we or did we not just liberate hundreds of glitches from the Mother Lake monopoly today-' I checked the wall screen, 'yesterday.'

'We did...'

'That's right. You've got Magikid Azhu on the case. I'll do everything I can to keep your work away from Counselor M, but you've gotta promise to get serious on the field.'

They stood up, faced flushed. 'Deal. Also, I'm sorry but I just realized I kept you here overnight.'

I pushed off the couch onto my feet and almost onto the floor. 'International crisis aversion-got it.'

Alter caught my arm. They crouched and dropped it over their shoulder, slipping one arm under to support my back. 'Easy, you just pulled off the impossible. I'll walk you back.'

'That's not gonna look very I.C.A. Just get a staffbot.'

'No, you were right. You're in my squad-you're my responsibility.'

They'd called our little dysfunctional squad a squad. Couldn't argue and not just because of the tears choking my throat.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Nia, July 8, 3110 CE

I woke up wearing the shadows of the Ex-Sovereign, the Head, and Bevel. I had to sit up to feel the warm sun on the stitches on back of my neck. My log thumped against my chest from the pocket of the hospital smock. I lifted the half gold and half silver orb in three fingers, but it grew heavier under their stares, so I had to hold it with my whole hand.

'Benzene.'

The halves rolled over each other slowly enough that their colors didn't blur together as the log floated to hang beside my eyes like a third. The two colors gave away its spinning unlike Bevel's single, solid orb. Not two colors, half colors.

The three asked after me and wouldn't move to unblock the light until I promised I was well. The implant that let me use a log hadn't given me pain during the brief surgery and now braided with the fibers of my spinal cord was a part of my body. My body wasn't as strong as Enid's, but it wouldn't ever hurt me. It was too weak.

They finally stepped out of the way of the recovery room's curlicue window. The Ex-Sovereign leaned against the white wall that made her black hair blacker but her silver headband less silver. Bevel stood in front of the tan curtain matching the tan tiles. They were the only one wearing their smile in the open.

The Head wore their unmoving eagle's face as always, but they must've had a sense of humor to alway perch themself on the fixtures. They sat with one foot in an armchair's blue green seat, one leg crossed, and their butt on top of the chair's back. Only the wall kept them from falling. I would've like to take the Head's psychic reading, but they kept their whole body covered, unlike Bevel and the Ex-Sovereign.

The Ex-Sovereign clapped her hands for breakfast. The servants brought a low, wooden folding table and boxlike stools padded on both ends.

'I haven't set up the internet, yet,' I said.

The Ex-Sovereign laughed on the inside. 'Surgery's hard on the body. You should eat a little first, rehydrate at least.'

I didn't want to eat alone in the bed when my friends ate together in front of me, so the Ex-Sovereign sent for another stool. I sat across from her with my back bared to the wind of the AC. The oval folding table brought us closer than the Round Table ever did.

Bevel frowned around the toasted crumpet between their teeth and set it down leaving marks in the sponge without biting through. The brown paper napkin cracked as they wiped the crumbs off their fingers. The Ex-Sovereign laced her crumbless fingers around a mug of coffee and awaited the news. She always used utensils.

'Key mentioned-joked, really-about Alter having someone in their room last night.'

The Ex-Sovereign set the mug on the table and her hands on her top knee. The Head set down the unused porcelain plate they'd been holding like a steering wheel.

Bevel held their tablet flat over our breakfast. The Head accessed the security footage. Everyone leaned toward the screen. We watched Alter leave their room with Baozhu over their shoulder through a fisheye.

The Ex-Sovereign drew back to their chair wearing their inner smile on the outside for the first time I'd seen them. 'Excellent work, Bevel. Who do we know who can acquire evidence?' Quotations hooked themselves around 'acquire' without her fingers. She turned to me. 'Do you think your companion might be persuaded to testify against Alter?'

'That depends on what happens to Alter.'

'They'll be executed for breaking the terms of the Loegria-Wales peace treaty, of course.'

It went against my duty to let her kill Alter even secondhand but she had to be appeased. The hunger inside her sucked the fat and muscle off her skull so she looked like a skeleton wearing a coat of human body. I couldn't look directly at her caved in eyes.

'It might be easier to blackmail Alter.'

The Ex-Sovereign waited for the explanation but I had none I knew how to give. I didn't mean to pass the blame, but the Counselor had been very vague about what we could and couldn't tell about ourselves. It couldn't hurt to be guarded. I chewed the edge of a synthetic sausage patty that tasted more like animal than sage.

The Head snapped the fingers of both hands and pointed finger guns from an invisible shoulder holster. 'Cut Morrow.'

I understood less than before they'd spoken. The Ex-Sovereign understood more. A flash of joy briefly fleshed out her face and she was beautiful and then the hunger dragged her green eyes down the long corridors of their sockets. I looked away at Bevel.

Bevel explained the Head. The Counselor only supported the current Sovereign because they took their duty literally and spent all their time in the field. This left all other Sovereign offices to the Counselor. The Ex-Sovereign merely had to blackmail the Sovereign into leaving these offices to her. Cut Morrow, indeed.

The Ex-Sovereign asked me to find the Sovereign. I still didn't have internet so Bevel showed me the Sovereign's profile on the tablet. The photo looked forced.

The Sovereign sat with one foot on the calf of the other as though they scratched an itch. They gripped the arms of the minimal black armchair with both hands. Their tag dangled over the skin bared by their indigo robe's deep Y cut. Their log floated above one tensed shoulder. They faced the camera but their eyes strayed to some unseen target at the side.

The Sovereign leapt out of the chair and into my mind. They landed in the dark space on the balls of their bare feet. Their robes billowed out behind them like moth's wings. Their tag swung against their chest in time with their heart. Maybe mine. They turned their body at an angle and looked not at but behind me.

I looked but there was only dark and empty space. I looked backed. The Sovereign had already left a trail of stills. The stills began to dissolve before I'd reached the first. The Sovereign did not want to be found. I had to run through my own mind.

I chased the Sovereign out of the medical wing and into the hall. They'd taken the lift but I didn't have time. I ran to the stairwell and jumped off the landing. I fell through the square space at the core down to the very end. I couldn't see the lift but I felt the toll of its synthetic bell. I ran.

The Sovereign fled down the wide corridor of the Court's first floor in a run that flickered them through space. Only one foot of their stills ever touched the ground. They left through the Court through the door to the courtyard. They stayed on the path of lavender gravel between the trees until the edge of the small lake. I couldn't see the next still but I felt the beat of their tag like a heart.

I dove into the lake where there was no water, only cold. There was no light, only the dissolving stills of a person diving deeper and deeper below the surface. The last was the Sovereign. Their feet floated over their head over their arm. Their hand pressed against a surface in the dark.

The Sovereign looked over their shoulder. They looked at me for less than a second. Maybe they'd never looked at all. Their eyes only stopped behind me.

I didn't want to look at the cold and lightless space behind me. It would look no different from the dark else at the bottom of the lake. The ancestors promised that only one of us could feel a stranger in our mind, but it bothered me that their eyes were the last to dissolve.

I opened my eyes. The Ex-Sovereign, the Head, and Bevel faced me from around the oval table. The Head set their plate back on the table. It had a stain of red juice from a crushed fruit.

I crossed my arms and dropped them against my chest. 'You did that on purpose!'

The Ex-Sovereign and Bevel glanced at the Head who shrugged and shook their golden eagle face. The Ex-Sovereign and Bevel didn't have more than a glance to spare. Anticipation sent little tremors through a face like a hive of bees buzzed under its skin.

'They have a secret lair at the bottom of the lake in the courtyard.'

'Fishy,' said the Head.

I laughed so hard I spattered all over the untouched grapes and chilled, buttered toast on my plate. The anticipation died everywhere on Bevel's face in an instant flattening. The Ex-Sovereign was already on her feet.

'Nicely done, Nia,' she said. Her skeleton's grin stood at odds with her silky, fluid hair and the soft, slender hand she offered me. She helped me up but did not let go. Her thumb brushed the back of my hand. 'You've found our neutrois and doubled the blackmail. I'd really love to express my gratitude after this business is behind us.'

I was very glad for my dark skin because she couldn't see the blood and heat in my face. The Ex-Sovereign let go as though she had and folded her hand toward her chest before dropping it to her side. She reached out with the other and waved a full set of bright yellow clothes and flat-heeled sandals to me.

I tried very hard to ignore the Head's thumbs-up.

We followed the Ex-Sovereign to the Court Security Headquarters. It sat in a vertical slice of all three floors and the basement. We went to the barracks on the third floor where there were no cameras. The Head brought up fully concealing diving uniforms from the armory in the basement. One in each hand.

Bevel shook their head. 'Gaunt's right. Security travels in twos at most unless something's wrong.'

The Ex-Sovereign took one and handed me the other. The uniform was the same as the Head's in coloring and only differed in detail. Red flippers replaced the heavy boots and the gloves had webbing between the fingers. A fish's face replaced the eagle's. Two cords like whiskers from the bottom of the fish's face wrapped around to the back to a slim but heavy tank.

'Why does air weigh so much?' I complained.

'It's an ultra-saturated PFC, a liquid,' said Bevel. It filled the mask for better pressure control. 'Brace for a bit of discomfort when you submerge.'

The suit had a carbon dioxide scrubber but it had to reach the bloodstream directly. Many small needles pierced the skin and like a form-fitting coat of mosquitoes they also injected a superficial numbing agent.

'The PFC won't hurt, but if it's your first time, your brain might convince you that you're drowning. Just stay calm and it'll pass.'

The Ex-Sovereign and I took the Headquarter's lift to the first floor. We waited outside the double glass door to the Courtyard for a servant to pull up in a little solar-powered buggy. It looked a bit like a golf cart except solar panels completely covered its outsides. I'd never been close enough to see the snake scale pattern of trapped rainbows in their oil black cells.

The servant drove us to the lake's edge by a special path of cobblestones set in sand. I had to keep my eyes on the roof of the cart. The stones looked like eggs protruding from holes in a toad's back. Just the thought prickled my own skin.

The Ex-Sovereign showed me where to turn on the mask's light as the servant drove away. The button was at the base of the skull.

I didn't move my prickled arms from where they held each other across my chest. 'Would you mind helping me?'

The Ex-Sovereign approached until her flippers touched mine. She leaned forward and braced one hand on my shoulder. The other hand reached behind and up my neck. She did not mind.

We sat on the concrete bank with our legs in the water much warmer than my mind. Our feet did not touch any ground. The Ex-Sovereign pushed off the bank first. I waited the sixty seconds for her suit to adjust and followed.

I seemed to have left my skin back on the bank. I felt a chill not from cold but something like a draft when you were naked all over my body.

The PFC filled my mask from the bottom. I breathed from my nose with my head up for the longest delay. I imagined the PFC as a new fluid makeup. A full facial dye. I closed my eyes and stuck out my tongue. It tasted like like nothing, so I imagined it to taste like blackcurrant wine. The tasty primer took a while to set, so I went ahead and opened my mouth. The primer went down and down and down to burn and pool in my lungs, but it tasted like wine and a fine wine always had a little warmth.

I breathed and drank it with my mouth until it rose above my nose. I let my nose breathe. It went down all at once. The burn made my eyes water, but my throat had already adjusted to the new pressure from my mouth. I opened my eyes.

The Ex-Sovereign held out her hand. I took it. She did not move. She waited on me.

I swam forward and the ancestors helped us dive faster and deeper. All the water looked the same but the first spell guided my mind by a game of hotter and colder. I seemed to have swapped my hair for fire just before our light touched a curved wall.

The lair looked like a giant ball of dark glass half-sunk into the bottom of the lake. The glass was so dark that it cast back our warped and fish-faced reflections. I pressed my free hand against the wall as the Sovereign had. The ancestors phased us through the glass like a pair of touring ghosts.

The Sovereign in the white coat of a doctor swivelled around in a chair. Their eyes narrowed behind a plastic and transparent version of a welder's mask. Their gloved hands clenched the arms of the chair with the same tense strength that had ripped them out of the picture.

Baozhu stepped partially in front of them. They wore the same coat, gloves, and mask. I was relieved I couldn't see a single drop of blood.

Baozhu walked into our auras. They raised their mask and smiled. 'Nia-Mauve,' their voice sounded as though I'd laid my head against their body, 'look at that-not a drop on the floor.'

The Sovereign's hands relaxed. They folded them in front of their chest. They asked for an explanation. The Ex-Sovereign asked for a talk. The Sovereign and Baozhu waited for us to remove our flippers and tanks and fish heads.

The four of us sat on stools around an empty lab table. The Sovereign had put all the computers to sleep so every square of colored lights on the wall had returned to black glass. The gently curving tables on either side of us supported drawers and microscopes but more of other equipment that I wasn't familiar with. They'd pushed the machines up to the wall to save space. Everything was spotless and controlled at a temperature slightly under the Court's and a slightly drier humidity.

'What is this place?' I asked.

' _Pride_ , an old ocean exploration vessel,' said the Sovereign. They only ever discovered that they hadn't needed it. It'd been placed in storage until the Sovereign asked the servants to set it at the bottom lake. 'Speaking of, you were about to tell me what you're doing here.'

I looked at the Ex-Sovereign and their gazes followed. She steepled her fingers under her skeletal chin. She looked more like the Counselor than she might've liked to hear. 'Help me cut Morrow out of the picture.'

'What?'

The Sovereign shook her head, with two manicured fingernails where her eyebrow should've been. 'My apologies. I'm having a hard time believing you're this obtuse.'

'I do spend most of my time avoiding Morrow and everything she's touched.'

'Right. Well, the offices of Sovereign have never been about fieldwork and all about ruling.'

'Ah, I see. I've no objection to naming you Counselor. Consider it done.'

The shock filled out the Ex-Sovereign's face so I could exchange a glance with her. We looked about at the Sovereign.

They smiled and shrugged. 'You've always been more suited to rule than me. I can't say how Morrow will take it, though. If that's all, we've got some experiments to monitor.'

'What kind of experiments?' I asked.

'Cellular, genetic,' said the Sovereign as they leaned back on the the legs of their stool.

'Are you going to take the gray out of the bots' skin?' I'd have loved to see if they were as green as the grass and the leaves without it.

The Sovereign's strong hands and arms lost their strength. They fell back. Magic flared from Baozhu and they caught the Sovereign and their stool before they hit the ground. Baozhu raised the two as though they were one.

'Eureka?' asked Baozhu.

'Eureka,' said the Sovereign.

They jumped off their stool and woke a square of computer screen. They pulled the square into a cube in the space between our table and the table at at the wall. They selected two terms from a dropdown and two 3D models appeared. They enlarged the one that looked like an underwater kelp tree with a massive gall between the slender trunk and fingerlike branches.

They glanced up at us who watched them intently. They bit their lip as they grinned. 'This is a human brain cell.'

They minimized the first and enlarged the second. It looked almost the same as the first but its gall sat in the middle of six main branches and their many little branches. 'This is an artificial cell. The axon and terminals and dendrites are all nanotubes. The inside is mostly organic but uses nanobots to support missing functions.'

'Where did the functions go?'

'They never organically existed because A.I. cells are essentially genetically modified bacteria that've been wired together.'

The three of us at the table were lost together. We waited.

'Horizontal gene transfer.'

Baozhu threw both hands over their mouth. Their 'OMFG' was almost too muffled to catch. They placed their gloved palms flat against the tabletop and turned to us. 'My-our genes. Myrddin's genes.'

The Ex-Sovereign didn't bother to keep her eyes from widening and her jaw from slackening. 'Counselor or not, Morrow can't find out about this. No one can. It'll get back to Mother Lake.'

The Sovereign had already taken their swivel chair to a desktop. 'Glitches,' they said without looking away from the square they woke above their head.

'And what happens when they melt?'

The Sovereign's fingers froze over the touchpad keyboard. 'Azhu, can you control your body temperature?'

'Carents says yes, but it wears off in about six hours.'

'That's long enough for the full recharge cycle,' said the Ex-Sovereign.

'No more melties,' said the Sovereign.

'But a whole lotta glitches,' said Baozhu.

I had nothing to say. I didn't understand anything anyone was talking about. I hadn't been using my powers in the field like a psiber. I only painted. Enid would've understood.

The Ex-Sovereign left her stool and gently pat the back of my arm. It was time to go. 'Keep me up to date, Alter.'

'Of course, Counselor.'

Her face glowed with happiness. It didn't matter that the Ex-Sovereign or Counselor or Mauve only smiled from inside her body. She was beautiful and it was a shame that we had to put on the fish heads again.

Mauve wanted to watch when the Sovereign dismissed the Counselor so the Head brought us to Surveillance on the first floor. Squares of light filled a whole wall in six rows of six. Every half minute the rows shifted down to let the top screen fill with the new fisheyes.

The opposite wall had only a single frame of light that stretched from floor to ceiling and edge to edge. Mauve sat in swivel chair in front of this wall. Her hands moved like a conductor's and flicked moving images in and out of being. She controlled many squares at once. They appeared and enlarged or minimized or disappeared like living patches on a vorpal quilt.

I was glad she had her back to us. Every time her hair swept too violently I caught a flash of skull.

Bevel helped me set up Benzene's internet. I didn't have the implants for virtual reality which limited Benzene to the most basic functions. Bevel called them basic but it was like having a PC for my brain.

All I had to do was think about going online and I would. The internet couldn't block my eyes or ears because neither could thoughts. I wished I'd had this during school. I asked if people even needed to go to school with this kind of tech.

Bevel tilted their head and tapped their cheek with their stylus. I could almost see the light of the internet inside their pupils. 'Oh. No. Our education system is more of a holistic thought training in peer groups.'

Their three main focuses were logic, ethics, and creativity. They considered them equally important. The workload was mostly research, projects, and debates for peer interaction in class rather than one and done homework. They had to use tech outside their bodies until age sixteen which was the minimum age to begin the implanting.

I wished I could've gone to school here. I'd worked so hard training my brain to focus that I hadn't had time for peers. Unlike Enid. Everything came to her so easily.

I checked with the ancestors and the internet. Only Myrddin knew the secret of reversing his age. The ancestors said it was a curse, but I didn't see why.

I left Bevel making notes on their tablet and walked across the room to the Head. I folded my arms on the back of their chair. They leaned their tablet against their chest and turned their golden eagle head over their shoulder. 'What?'

'Why do you need a tablet if you have a log?'

'Some things shouldn't go to the head.'

They pulled the tablet off their chest so I could see. The Head was reviewing security footage without the fisheye of the cameras. The images looked like they'd been taken from human eye level. It was log footage.

I asked if Security could hack any log. They could but it would've taken too much time to review all of it. Security prefered to review submitted footage. They required their officers to submit log reports just as psibers had to submit their field footage to Intelligence. Submissions also came from witnesses to crimes or especially dutiful citizens. The Head said citizen submission was the funniest.

I asked to see.

The Head minimized the current video and entered a nine-digit ID number into the search bar. It brought up a list of reports beside a profile on Agreeance. The Head selected the latest submission and passed me the tablet. They stood up and cracked their back with both arms bent like empty wings.

'Where are you going?'

'For a shit. Guard my tablet. That's confidential.'

The footage began in a dark room over a rising and falling lump. I scrolled through using the bar at the bottom of the screen. Agreeance hadn't edited any of the footage or even turned off his log at any time. I stopped. Enid.

Agreeance and Enid had a snack together before going to separate morning workouts. They met back up for breakfast. They were so chummy that they threw grapes at each other. They laughed whether they caught them in their mouths or not. They didn't choke.

I scrolled through. It was all Enid. She was everywhere. I fast forwarded through the video of the two good chums being chummy until the ball. I remembered that Enid had attended but Agreeance hadn't.

The video showed the lift and hall outside Morgue's bedroom. The footage never changed. I still prefered it over the Tale of Two Chums. I let the clip of the still room play.

I checked how much footage was left after a quarter minute. It was almost at the end. I changed the playback to three times as fast.

Agreeance turned around to the golden door of writhing vines. He entered the room and Manon was inside instead of Morgue. They talked. The frame jumped and suddenly Manon was naked. It jumped again and they were having sex.

I stopped the footage. I was glad it had been anyone other than Enid but I'd seen for myself Agreeance and Enid growing closer. I couldn't let Enid walk into a relationship with a man who had sex on the side while wooing her. That kind of man was a cheater. It'd break her heart to find out too late. It was better to warn her early while she still had the chance to put distance between herself and her new friend.

I rewound the footage. I turned on Benzene's camera with a thought.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Nia, July 8, 3110 CE

Mauve's laughter called us to her before any naming. She laughed from her belly and her throat at the same time. The first was a feeling and the second was a sound.

She pointed at an enlarged square of light on the wall under her control. We watched Lathe stride down a corridor through its fisheye. Mauve shrank the square as he walked out of view and enlarged one of the Counselor in a private office.

The Counselor kept a line of red and white flowers in tan clay pots against the window wall at the side of her desk. Dark red potted flowers hung from the ceiling along the other three walls walls. A water bottle sat on her desk between an automated handheld fan and an active tablet. The Counselor stood behind the desk using the stylus as a conductor's baton to flick through her wall screen. Her log floated over her shoulder.

The door slid open and Lathe entered. He spoke only after it shut. We couldn't hear their conversation but none of us dared to break the silence.

The Counselor or maybe simply Morrow lowered her arms. The stylus shook between her fingers as she touched it to her tablet. The words in the email were too small to read. Mauve took a screenshot and passed the image to a smaller square of light at the corner of her own wall.

The stylus fell onto the table beside the tablet. We could almost hear its tinkling clatter. Morrow's head dropped with her arms. They hung frozen rather than limp.

Lathe continued to speak. He stepped forward when anyone else would've stepped back.

Morrow lashed out an arm. Lathe slammed into the door. It rattled behind him and the wall above cracked all the way the to the ceiling.

The line of potted flowers crashed down. They broke against him and shattered against the floor. The shards cut blood from his skin. It ran red down his body and black where it seeped into the dark soil.

Morrow's arm hung in the air. Her hand dropped from the wrist. Her arm followed from the shoulder. This time it swung limp.

She collapsed into the swivel chair behind her but hit the seat at an odd angle. The chair tipped forward. She landed hard on the tiles. The back of the chair smacked the top of her head. The desk now sat like the wall of a child's imaginary fort between Morrow and Lathe.

Lathe shook his head and rained flowers and dirt onto the floor. He pushed himself up on shaky hands and knees. The soil fell off him in the shape of a crouched shadow but left him covered in an unshakeable dust.

Lathe backed into the door. It slid open behind him. He backed out. A bot shaped like a wastebin entered the office at the same time. It sprouted many tubes and touched them to the fallen flowers, soil, and pot shards. The door slid shut as it vacuumed.

Morrow reached up her arms and pushed the chair to the side. She brought in her knees and rested her forehead against them. She laced her fingers over her head.

Mauve exploded with laughter and we jumped. Bevel and I jumped. The Head sat with their legs over one arm of their swivel chair as they had since entering the room.

Mauve's face showed her great want and need for Morrow's loss but this didn't feel like a laughing moment. I felt sorry for Morrow. I knew we'd sometimes bothered Morrow. Even so she'd never been anything but civil. She'd let Agreeance attack Enid right in front of Myrddin and me which hadn't been very nice. But she'd been very civil about it.

Mauve minimized the square with Morrow but didn't send it to a corner. She pulled up the screenshot and enlarged it. The fisheye clarified it to its maximum zooming but it was still a little blurry. She opened a command window and input her line on a virtual, 3D keyboard. She dropped the zoomed screenshot into the program in a new square and a readable version appeared beside it:

 _Morrow,_

 _Sorry for the short notice, but having reviewed Mauve's performance as Sovereign in my absence, it seems she's a better fit for Counselor under my form of rule. She's being promoted as you read this._

 _You've always been a capable servant of Loegria which is why, rather than being dismissed entirely, you've been appointed co-vice counselor._

 _I suggest you and Vivid meet with the new counselor at the earliest convenience to work out the delegations of duties._

 _Thank you for your continued service to our great nation,_

 _Alter_

Mauve turned to us with a lipless grin and reached out her arms with opened palms. Neither the Head nor Bevel moved. I placed both my palms over hers. I didn't agree with her happiness but I couldn't let her moment stretch into awkwardness.

Mauve clasped my hands and swung us around in a full circle before breaking away. She skipped to the door and whirled out. Her robes flared after her like purple wings attached at her hips.

Bevel and I exchanged glances with each other and head turns with the Head. Mauve stretched a single arm back into the room. She beckoned us with her manicured finger.

Mauve returned to her seat behind the floating black marble of the Round Table. The Head stood behind and to her left. Bevel sat on her right forever clutching their tablet and stylus. Now I had a seat on the other side of Bevel. Morrow and Vivid stood at the far end of the table. Morrow had recently reapplied her make-up.

Mauve invited them to sit. Vivid pulled up a chair. She put her blue-nailed hand on Morrow's arm but Morrow didn't move. Vivid got up and pulled a chair over for Morrow. She took Morrow's arm and guided her into the black half-moon. Morrow hadn't once blinked.

'Thanks for your prompt response. I'll return the favor by getting straight to business.' Mauve opened a file on their side of the 3D display at the core of the table.

It appeared to us backward as though it hung inside a mirror. I had to focus for left to right letters to stay in place. I had no idea where to begin with these but I took a pic with Benzene. I'd messaged my family's desktops to ask them to supper with me. I'd show them then.

'Let me know if you have any questions.'

Inner revulsion twisted Morrow's face as though she'd put her skin through the garbage disposal before putting it on. It wound her face into many fleshy horns and left raw, torn holes over the red muscle. I could see her tongue scraping the roof of her mouth back and forth through the hole in her upper lip and cheek.

Her tongue froze. Her face fleshed back to a beaming smile as I blinked. She looked so normal that I couldn't tell if she smiled on the inside or outside.

'No, no questions. Vivid?'

Vivid couldn't think of any.

Morrow stood up. 'If that's all, I shall report to my new station.'

Mauve dismissed them both. She was on her feet as soon as the door shut. She crossed her arms and leaned back against the table. Morrow's sudden change in mood bothered her. I think it bothered all of us.

'Gaunt, delete any footage of our little excursion this morning.'

The Head gave her a gloved thumbs up. They had already substituted the video with old clips.

'Bevel, tell Alter to destroy the bots who know the whereabouts of the lab.'

'Why do they have to be killed?' I asked. Someone could probably replace the servants' memories as easily as the Head had with the video.

'Once a memory is made, it can never be completely deleted,' said Mauve.

'That's how A.I. die, actually,' said Bevel.

They accumulated memories for hundreds of years and eventually it became too much for them. The memories and ghosts of memories leaked out and clogged other pathways. The A.I. grew slower and slower until it stopped moving at all like the cursed Tin Man.

'So Mother Lake programs them to replicate.'

I clapped my hands together. 'There are A.I. babies?'

There weren't. A.I. could have sex but always built their next generation the same as themselves. I was quite disappointed but still amazed at the beings in my new world.

I messaged Myrddin at the last minute in case he had no one to dine with him but he'd already agreed to take Morrow out with Vivid to cheer her up. I wondered if he knew that some of us still wanted to kill him a little bit.

I'd left Mauve a little early to be the first at the private conference room I'd reserved like a proper host. Baoyu had left even earlier. He leaned against the white paint wall behind a bright wooden chair. He smiled and waved. He couldn't see Benzene because I'd put my log away.

'This was a good idea,' he said.

I only knew that it was something I didn't want to go without.

Enid walked in and flung her gym bag down the empty length of the table. It hit the end wall with a swoosh of air and a fabric sag. She hadn't even looked. She pulled out a chair opposite me and threw a leg over one side and then the other as though it were a saddle. The chairs on either side of her scooted themselves away from her powerful legs.

Baoyu immediately switched his focus to her. He asked her how often she went to the gym. I knew she went every day excepting a few monthly rest days.

She'd taken me to the gym when I asked to go with her. She warned me never to do the same workout twice in a row. Then she worked me out so hard I never asked again. I'd always wondered if she'd done it on purpose.

Manon didn't glance up from texting on their tablet with one hand. They sat in the first chair on the right across from Baoyu. They stuck the stylus on the back of the tablet and moved them to the side but within reach of their right hand. They looked up.

Baoyu and I gasped. Manon's unpainted face almost glowed. Not in the scary way that Morrow glowed.

'I told Morgue about the dick move Myrddin pulled, so she took me out for a spa day. Pretty sure the masseuse was legit punching my back at some point, but I feel amazing right now.'

I told them that they looked amazing. I'd never seen anyone look like that outside of filters and proper lighting.

Baozhu arrived with the Sovereign at their side. The Sovereign waved at us but didn't enter with Baozhu. My new younger sibling sat between Baoyu and Manon.

I stood and clapped my hands. A line of servants came through the door and filled the table with porcelain trays. They left with the dish covers.

I'd ordered 'supper for five.' They'd brought nine dishes. There was a fresh vegetable salad, a fresh fruit salad, a cooked salad, soup, bread rolls, potatoes, synthetic chicken, synthetic beef, and different colors of ice cream together in a covered glass bowl. The servants had prepared the food simply and plainly with only salt, pepper, and dried spices but left sauces in glasses shaped like wine bottles at the end of the table. The water, wine, and tea were also at the end but in glass pitchers. The servants would take anything we didn't finish to break down into things for recycling.

I told my family about Mauve's new position as Counselor as we ate. Baozhu followed my lead and explained the Sovereign's experiment.

Baoyu set down his fork and spoon from where he'd been cutting synthetic chicken. His partially open napkin hid the knife. 'That's why we can't let Alter die: they're going to bring back magic. The experiment's going to work.'

'Yeah, but only for A.I.,' said Enid around a mouthful of wilted spinach.

'That's probably just the first stage.'

'If it works, our jobs are gonna be harder by roughly a fuck ton,' said Manon. They went through half a buttered baked potato before noticing that we'd all stopped eating. 'What?'

The psibers of the Sovereign Court came to power because everyone was terrified of melties. The Sovereign believed magic could keep A.I. from melting but all the successful tests in the world couldn't convince everyone.

'It does sound like we'd be raising a magical army,' I said.

'It could happen for real, accidentally,' said Baozhu.

A.I. could use magic converted to psionics to bypass their programming. That included their code of nonviolence.

'If it's that bad, we end it now,' said Enid. Her fork rested on her plate at an angle. Her right hand grasped her knife even with her wrist flat against the table.

'This is all assuming A.I. are the ones to get magic. Maybe Alter won't take it past their cellular stage,' said Baoyu. 'Maybe they'll find a way to pass it from A.I. cells to human cells.'

'Better make sure that's how Alter does it,' Enid said to Baozhu. The knife between her fingers pointed at Baozhu from the flat of the blade.

They saluted her and promised to keep reporting.

Manon shrugged. 'It's not like people are any better.'

Enid slammed her fist in the space between them. Thankfully it was her empty left but we still jumped. The dishes rattled like the coils of a porcelain bone snake.

She pointed at Manon with the edge. 'You don't know what you're talking about.'

'Oh really, Miss hello-Myrddin-it's-murder-time.' Manon shook the red faces of both their palms at her.

Enid leapt to her feet. Her chair bounced and scuffed the wall. She gripped the knife at the level of her hips like a gun to be drawn. 'He's the murderer.'

'Wine,' said Baoyu. He floated the pitcher and poured branching red streams into everyone's glasses at the same time. 'Wine, now.'

Enid grabbed her chair by the neck and dropped into the seat. She pressed the knife flat against the table. Her left hand crossed her plate and body for the wine. She swirled it in the glass but didn't drink.

I lifted a glass to my lips but lowered it without drinking. 'Mauve thinks Morrow is up to something. I'll keep reporting on Mauve reporting on Morrow.'

'Good idea,' said Baoyu as he drank. He asked if there was anything he could do to help. He asked me.

We didn't have Myrddin to guide us but the supper had been my idea. I guessed that made me something of a leader. I had to think of something a leader would. I could only think of something Enid would.

'People who talk about A.I. often talk about Mother Lake Industries.'

Baoyu snapped the fingers of one hand and nearly upset his drink. He grinned and winced and downed it all at once to be safe. He set the glass down with his cheeks puffed like a squirrel hoarding fermented nuts. It fell over out of spite. It had nothing to spill.

'Gigi and I are right next to Records all day. I'm sure we could find something interesting just by tomorrow night.'

Manon promised to talk to Morgue about Mother Lake. Morgue might not know anything but she was bound to know people who did.

Everyone knew what they had to do except for Enid. There was no ordering her around. Words slid off her as though she'd slicked her ears with oil.

She hadn't looked up from the uneaten vegetables and synthetic beef on her plate. She'd kept the wineglass in her left hand and pressed to her forehead. She now held her fork in right like an American. She stabbed at her peas and one by one stacked the tines of the fork.

I spoke her name without thinking.

Enid raised her head just enough to stare at me from the tops of her eyes under her dark and heavy brows. I had not taken the readings of my family but her eyes and brows and sockets worked together to leave black pits. Her cheeks were almost as drawn and hollowed. The lines around her mouth were dark and deep enough for gashes. She looked like Mauve full of wanting.

I couldn't tear my eyes away. 'What will you do?'

'I'll keep an out for Ags same as always.'

Ags. She even had a revoltingly affectionate name for her good chum. I doubted it would stick once she knew what he and Manon and been up to.

Baoyu filled his glass and stood up. He refilled everyone's glass and still didn't sit. 'Nia, this was such a good idea. I vote that we make family dinners a regular thing.'

Baozhu raised their glass. 'Here, here.'

Manon laughed so hard that wine sloshed over their hand and onto the table. The table absorbed the liquid.

Manon stood up and clinked their glass with Baozhu's and Baoyu's. 'Here, here.'

We moved on to wine and ice cream. I clapped my hands for the servants. They covered our dishes and took them away. Two stayed back to offer coffee or tea from their porcelain trays.

I'd heard but never seen a person take their ice cream with a black iced coffee. The servant with coffee poured me a tall glass. I sipped it but it was too bitter. I had to chase the taste away with ice cream too quickly to enjoy it. I tried a spoonful of ice cream first but it was even more bitter as an aftertaste. I passed the glass back to the servant.

Enid snapped her fingers which drew both servants. She took my iced coffee off the tray and tipped her head back. She didn't lower the glass until she'd finished the whole thing. The glass struck the tray as loud and sharp as a slap to the ear. Somehow it hadn't touched Enid's self-satisfied smirk.

I laid my spoon in the finished position over my unfinished ice cream. I'd lost my appetite. I asked a servant for a simple, hot black tea instead.

Manon pulled out their tablet before they'd halfway finished their ice cream. They leaned on one hand and elbow. They left their spoon in their mouth to use their other hand.

Baozhu was the first to finish their ice cream and tea. They drank the last of the tea on the way out and put the cup on the servant's tray. Baoyu followed them but left their dishes on the table.

Enid asked for another iced coffee. She sipped slowly while Manon finished. Manon called the servants over to take their dishes. 'Do you mind?' They left with their tablet in hand as soon as the servants had cleared their place.

Enid was still here and I hadn't had to ask her to stay back. She must've had something to say. I looked at her. She held her palms against the dewy sides of her glass.

'Give us a moment,' she told the servants.

They left without a word. I'd never heard them speak. Maybe they hadn't been built for words.

'Nia. Where were you last night?'

Enid must've stopped by in the middle of the night to check on me. It didn't matter. I had to show Benzene to her anyone to pass along the footage. I held out my log in my hand.

'You can only get these from surgery but it's a very small surgery.'

She walked around to stand at my side leaning her hip on the table. She took Benzene and turned it around for the full view of its gold and silver. 'We're really here for good.'

'I'm not the only one taking roots.' I held out my hand. And she dropped the log back in my palm.

I activated Benzene and connected it to the wall screen in front of us. I opened the video I'd saved to the C drive folder. I muted the video and scrolled through the starting footage.

Enid saw herself and understood that Agreeance had recorded the video. She asked me where I'd gotten it.

'Agreeance shared it with his sibling and they shared it with me.'

I didn't want to go into details. She'd threatened Manon who was family with a knife and Myrddin who wasn't with death. The Head had even less relation to us than Myrddin. I hadn't actually lied besides.

I let the video play at the moment Agreeance faced the golden door. Enid saw Manon and straightened off the table. She stepped back and back again until the sides of her hands touched the wall. Her face hadn't twisted its skin into horns but I still recognized the disgust.

'Stop. Stop it.'

I did and shut off the screen. I could see the image negatives against the wall when I blinked. I looked at Enid. She stared at the empty wall with her twisted snarl as though she saw them too.

'Which sibling?'

'Gaunt.'

'I'll talk to them.' She ripped her eyes away by quarter turns. 'Nia, you have to tell Manon.'

I looked down at my palms. There was no answer to read in their emptiness. 'I can't.'

I knew Enid. Manon was family but a stranger. It was too much for me. Enid could do it. She didn't break under awkwardnesses. She broke them.

Enid told me I didn't have to say anything. She said I could just show Manon the video like I'd done with her. But it wasn't the same. Just being near enough Manon the stranger to see her horror and know I'd caused it would stomp me flat to the ground. My heart already pounded in my chest as my mind painted her horror to the back of my eyelids. It was worse than the image negatives.

I stared back at my palms. My eyes were just in time to see the sweat budding up from my pores. I couldn't close my eyes or I'd see Manon's horror. I stared up at the ceiling and its woven plant lights.

My chair quaked as Enid dropped one hand on its back and then the other. She looked down at me. Long dark strands that escaped her ponytail fell on either side of our faces. They were so long they brushed my shoulders in a black hair bridge between our bodies and the light that separated our space.

'You have to be the one.'

'Why?'

'You have the evidence and it can't come from me.'

I knew but I asked and she told me what I knew. Everyone knew she and Agreeance were close friends. They were inseparable. Her words against Agreeance might sound like a warning or a vengeance to anyone else interested in him.

'Are you interested?'

Enid tipped back her head so her laughter wouldn't fall in my face. Her hair whipped into the air with the sound like Medusa's own snakes. 'I like my men and women without a mummy complex, thanks.'

My chest hadn't felt so light since I'd escaped my diving suit and coughed up its black currant dregs. I almost regretted taking the video. My throat seized and my skin itched from the sweat seething up from beneath. It was too late.

I'd shown Enid. She'd tell Agreeance. She'd tell the Head if she could find them. They'd find out by some means. Manon would have to find out. I knew Enid would make Agreeance apologize to Manon on his knees with his head on a platter.

I grabbed the skirt of my robe in bright yellow bunches. My sweating hands would leave prints but it hardly mattered now. Drops fell onto the skirt and darkened it in spots. No self-respecting Lady Macbeth would cry into her dress. But I'd never set out to be the Lady in the first place. It'd just happened and no one would believe me.

Enid crouched at my side with one hand on my shoulder. She asked what was wrong. She didn't ask if I was alright. She knew.

'It's too much. It's too much right now.' I'd already killed my Duncan. I might as well take the crown while I could. 'I'm too weak from the surgery and too tired from all the anticipation.'

Enid sighed. I hated her for knowing my weakness so intimately that it made her sigh. It was mine but she somehow seemed to steal it with her very breath.

I let go of my dress and smoothed the wrinkles in my handprints. I counted each pass of my hands.

'You've got twenty-four hours. If you don't tell Manon by then, this'll look much worse for you then it will for me when I'm telling them.'

I didn't know anyone who'd ever had two last suppers. I looked forward to the next even less.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Enid, July 9, 3110 CE

Pulled through the swimming pool with my arms. I kicked my leg down with its arm, but kicking kept you straight more than moved you. The movement came from the arms. They were paddles rotating on the the line of your body.

Swimming turned your body into a forward-motion machine. That's why you had to take care with your exhales. They were the exhaust. If you weren't inhaling, you had to exhale. Any carbon dioxide you kept inside slowed your engine to a stop. I hadn't stopped for hours because I practiced good technique.

There wasn't anyone else here except the staffbot on lifeguard duty. I'd chased some off by doing drills around the edge of the pool. The hours chased off the rest.

Swimming was a lot easier on my knees than yesterday's tread run. It was easier on all my joints than the endurance row before that. Endurance training gave me something better to do than lie awake in bed all night.

I took the stat and meal recommendation reports from the staffbots religiously so I wouldn't lose weight. Every time I stood on the scale it read the same, but something inside me felt changed. It wasn't that I'd stopped hearing the ancestors. They'd never been a part of me in the first place. There was a feeling deep down in the core of my everything that I was burning. I didn't know what'd happen when it used up all my oxygen. I wasn't scared I'd die. I was scared I'd die and come back and I wouldn't be me anymore. So I stayed very careful.

I turned my head. I breathed in water. My arms and legs kept going as I coughed. The cough took in water for every shot of air. I couldn't stop kicking. I couldn't stop pulling. I couldn't stop coughing.

The water was cold and rock heavy inside my burning body. As hard as I kicked I couldn't stay afloat. The water drew me down further and further. The bottom was just another bed. I wasn't ready. There was so much light but all of it was blue.

I woke up on my side on the side of the pool. The last of the water shot out my nose and sloshed out my mouth. I closed my eyes and rested the side of my head against the warm, gritty pavement. I couldn't hear them.

The staffbot covered me with a blanket. I sat up and pulled it around my shoulders. I kept my grip on the sides so it wouldn't go anywhere it shouldn't.

'Report.' My teeth chattered and cut up my word and almost my tongue. I pushed one side into my face.

I stood while the staffbot read but everything felt shaky. The staffbot walked under my arm so I could lean on their shoulders. I led them back to the side of the pool. I'd be in worse shape tomorrow if I didn't cool down. I looped the towel over their shoulders and got back into the water. This time I never let go of the edge.

I grit my teeth every time Ags' metal spoon clanked against his porcelain bowl. Every time he took another spoonful of that god-awful shredded wheat cereal there'd be another and another. All the clanking piled up in my ears till I couldn't hear myself grinding my peanut buttered English muffin back down to grain and peanut powder.

'If you don't stop hitting the bowl I'll give your head a milky dunk.'

The hand holding the spoon froze in front of his chest, the topmost object in my line of sight. I couldn't look at his face. The law was innocent before proven guilty but I wasn't the law. If I caught the first split of a smile I might just grab his face and the split the whole top from the bottom. My hands shook around my bread thinking about it. I dug in my nails until I'd buried them to the quick in peanut butter.

He asked about my fucking problem. I balled up my bread and shoved it into my mouth so I had my arms free to cross. So what I got peanut butter on my orange tunic. Some staffbot could print me another.

The door to the sparring room behind us whooshed open and Morgue stepped onto the balcony. She stalked toward us, glare front and center. She stalked toward Ags. I could see why he'd tatted her as an angel. Her hair and robe tails streamed out behind her in silver and livid wings.

He stood up so fast he knocked his chair into the railing. The empty bars of its back caught it at a weird, one-legged angle. I was too tired to stand, and the shape of the bread gave me trouble enough. I might have to take it out to chew.

Morgue cut him off in the middle of a good morning. 'Care to explain why my friend and guardian has locked themself in their room and is sobbing at the top of their lungs?'

The mash of bread lost all taste and texture. It could've been a lead canonball for all its shape and weight. This didn't come close to half a good anything.

Ags dropped his bowl. 'Manon said they didn't have ovaries.'

There wasn't a crash. The bowl and its cigarette ash milk hovered at his knees. Morgue drew up her jewelled fingers into a beak and floated the bowl onto the glass table.

'Was your log on during sex?'

'Well, yeah, I promised Auntie M-'

She held up her palm. Each second of silence punched a larger hole into my gut. I felt my abs getting vacuumed and unwinding out of them string by string. My organs let out a gurgling squelch. Morgue's eyes never moved off Ags.

'You didn't...watch my log report, did-'

'Just the clip saved to a public network folder.'

All the cords sucked out all at once. My organs sloshed an acid trail up my throat. I reached two fingers into my cheeks and pincered the nasty ball. I flung it onto my plate. It landed with a wet smack and spray.

'Aw, gross, Enid,' said Ags.

The dishes and tabletop rattled with a ear-splintering crack. Ugly, branched fault lines cut up every porcelain and glass. The ones holding liquids leaked and bled all over the table and dripped through the cracks to the floor. The paved balcony drank every drop back to dry ground.

'What's the folder name?' My voice came out so hoarse you'd think I'd just choked on my first cigarette.

'"C" as in "Out in a public network folder for the whole fucked Court to see." I've had it taken down and Vivid is scrubbing for the traces but the damage is done.'

'I hard delete all log reports. There's no way it could've gotten there.'

Morgue turned her green dagger eyes on me. 'Unless someone hacked your log prior to reporting.'

I felt Ags' eyes on me too. Acid surged up my throat and my cheeks bloated with the displaced air.

'Enid?'

I shook my head. If I opened my mouth, I'd spew.

'Enid what the fuck did you do?'

One of them yanked me out of my chair so fast my jaw came loose. Acid spurted onto the table. They dangled me over the side of the balcony, acid still dribbling out the corners of my mouth. They yelled but it was all noise to me. The sounds stabbed my ears and my everywhere. Tears came out the punctures in my eyes. Piss came out the puncture in my urethra.

They dropped me onto the balcony. I landed hard on my hands and knees and felt the ground all the way into my shoulders and hips. I couldn't stop retching. It came out in spurts every time I cried hard enough to cough.

All I heard was my name. Enid, Enid, Enid. A hiss and a scream and a curse. It drilled so deep down into my head I was afraid it'd wake the ancestors.

I screamed 'Shut up!'

They went quiet enough that I could hear the blood beat in my ears. It drowned out the sound of my voice telling them that Nia'd seen it from Gaunt and accidentally saved it to the wrong folder to show me so I'd warn Manon away from a prick who secretly filmed his sex encounters. My eyes drifted up to Ags' face.

All the blood had drained from his face into his eyes. They were more red than green. Shrivelled lips quaked around his sagging mouth. His head sagged on his neck. His neck and arms sagged on his shoulders. His torso sagged on his hips.

He shuffled toward me. His legs, his whole body weighted down by the chain of events out of a night fucking terror. He pulled me onto my feet the same as his mum had done to the now broken, empty bowl.

He said he needed to talk to Nia, not Gaunt. Gaunt was the Head of Court Security. He'd sent every report to Gaunt. Gaunt was the one in the mask who was always with Morgue. 'I need to talk to Nia.'

I opened my mouth. I didn't have any words or acid left. I closed it and shuffled after him, the pavement drinking up my chilled piss footprints.

I followed Ags into what looked like a dance studio with a mirrored wall behind a bar, a window wall behind a bar, and a wooden floor as shiny as the open-air basketball stadium we'd been in for the coronation. Someone in a golden eagle mask spun and dipped Nia in time to jazzy trumpet. Their mirror and window reflections saw us.

Ags' whole body tensed out of its sag. His limp fingers curled to shaking, hard-knuckled fists. 'Gaunt.'

Gaunt pulled Nia and themself upright. Nia panted under a second skin of sweat. One hand still clutched Gaunt's glove.

'I said alone.'

Gaunt shook their mask. 'Mauve-'

Ags moved so fast I hadn't seen him cross the room, or I'd blinked out for a couple seconds and missed it. He hooked Gaunt's arm in his and in the same motion dragged him to the door. Gaunt and Nia's connected arms stretched long but their fingers ripped apart under Ags' drag.

The door slid open. He pinned Gaunt between him and the corner of the wall to type something into the motion sensor box. The box dinged when done. Ags pivoted and threw Gaunt over his hip into the hall. The door slid shut. Gaunt banged from their side. After three tries the only sound left came from the jazz trumpet. Ags shut that off from the box, too.

He walked to Nia much more slowly. She seemed to melt under the light and his glare, but it was just the sweat pooling until it was large and heavy enough to break off her body.

My hands touched a bar. I checked over my shoulder. I'd somehow backed up at an angle to the window wall. I couldn't look back at Ags and Nia. I watched them through the mirror instead.

They stood so close you'd think they'd squared up to dance. Ags must've asked questions he knew the answers to because his face had his mum's angry blankness. Nia answered without drinking her tears somehow. They joined the sweat at her jawline and made it drop faster. The drops against wood sounded the same as the beating blood in my ears.

'Do you have any idea what you've done?'

Nia caught my eye in the mirror. Her wet robes clung to her wet figure and there wasn't a single dry patch between them. She looked more drowned than I had this morning.

'Yes.'

Ags roared. His face twisted off the blankety blankness. He grabbed Nia by the front of her robes and hauled her off her feet. She kicked the air as she looked at me through the mirror with her teeth parting and clenching around her weak cries.

The mirror shook and thundered with an ear-splintering crack. My knees collapsed under me, burning deep down in the bone. My hands on the bar were the only things keeping the rest of me off the ground.

Ugly fault lines branched across the whole wall and the thin strip of glass Nia used to find my eyes. Broken plates from the size of a hand to a torso fell off the wall. They smashed against the shining floor in powdery clouds of glass. Nia screamed and Ags roared over her. The plates fell and fell until I couldn't see them anymore.

I didn't want to look. I didn't want to see my failure to protect her. But more than that, I didn't want to satisfy the part of me that thought she deserved it. She'd hurt Manon and Ags in a very public way that'd stick with them for the rest of their lives. Punishment was only fair, but I couldn't tell if this was justice or vengeance. That part of me didn't care which.

The screaming and crying was all Nia, now. Ags had gone into a silence that made my whole body prickle and itch from needles of sweat. I couldn't imagine what Manon would be doing. They'd have to be here.

They had to. They'd want to know and have a say in what happened to make amends to them. It might not've been vengeance, but it wasn't fully fair without them.

I looked. Nia cried on the floor on her knees in a ring of glass. She held both her wrists to her chest. Blood covered both palms, but the rest of her was only drenched from sweat. Ags stood over her, bleeding from the side of his body that'd faced the mirror. There was so much red you couldn't see where he'd been cut.

I pulled myself up with the bar. My legs shook under me. I'd fall if I let go.

'Oy,' I croaked.

Ags turned his green dagger eyes on me. I couldn't tell if Nia could see me through her tears, but she quieted down.

'No more without Manon.'

Ags stalked to me, trailing blood in splattered drops. He shoved a finger at my sternum. 'You didn't stop it. You aren't stopping me.'

I kept my hands on the bar and leaned forward until my forehead pressed against his. Our eyes bored holes into each other's skulls, not getting anywhere. I closed my eyes and grit my teeth and let go.

I fell. I conked my head against Ags' chest and then the bar behind before I hit the floor. Ags stepped back. My core'd been vacuumed out, so I caught myself with hard slaps on my arms. My teeth slid and snicked each other at an odd angle that made me want to vomit all over again.

Ags dropped to one hand and one knee. The other hand hovered over my shoulder. 'Enid, fuck, are you alright?'

'I need a wheelchair.'

He asked me if I needed anything else as he ran to the box beside the door. Concern replaced all his growling anger. A good thing, because I'd somehow lost control of the one thing I thought I was actually good and smart at controlling. Silent tears snuck out my eyes. I'd never been so lost and lied to my whole life.

The door opened. Mauve rushed in in a flurry of light purple robe wings. Gaunt and the other person she was always with tailed her. They crowded around Nia. A cleaning bot and a staffbot with a wheelchair followed.

Ags dashed back to me. The staffbot helped me into the wheelchair. That dork just raised and lowered his arms from the elbows, clenching his fists at the bottom and opening them at the top of each rep. His mouth went open and closed too. I croaked a laugh that stopped my tears.

'Sorry, you're just the first human friend I've ever had and if you're suffering some kind of terminal-I'm trying to be brave for you! Please, just-' he wiped at the tears starting to spill down his cheeks. 'I never got you back for killing me with leg day yet.'

Mauve stalked toward us. We looked at her and she stopped. I didn't know what she'd seen, but she got that look on her face that some people get when suddenly hit by runner's trots and turned around. She speedwalked right back to her chums.

Ags followed the staffbot who wheeled me all the way to the counselling offices. I'd explained how I wasn't dying. He hadn't said anything but hadn't left either. Only some introvert would've wanted to be alone after all today's shitstorms.

Baozhu smiled and waved to us on the way out. I asked them how it'd gone. They popped two finger guns at me. 'Late-stage melty-related trauma counseling.'

I wondered if that was typical American humor because it bloody well wasn't a punchline or delivery I'd get from a Loegrian.

The same gum-chewing receptionist was there and took over for the staffbot. They wheeled me to the scanner. Ags flopped his whole body onto the blue-green reception sofa. The Court-wide color code was so laughably Loegrian that I laughed. Might've been a tad unhinged from the overexertion.

I was still laughing when the receptionist wheeled me into Scabbard's office. They'd faced me toward the tropical fish. My laughter died as I watched and listened. The overhead lights eased into a blue tint.

Scabbard entered with a warm 'good morning' and a smile that was more teeth than curve and not much of those either. They turned the wheelchair to face their armchair. They asked after my condition.

I didn't know what to tell them, so I just listed everything I'd checked off on my to-do lists since the last visit. Their stylus moved after each item. Scabbard asked me about the time frames for each activity. I'd no idea for most of it, but I'd listened and memorized the stat reports from my workouts.

Scabbard studied the notes on their tablet for about a half minute. 'On average, how much sleep would you say you've been getting over the past few days?'

Whoever employed Scabbard needed to raise their rations. Them knowing didn't make admitting it any more pleasant, though. Might as well straight have out with it so we'd stop wasting each other's time.

'I can't sleep because if I sleep, the gibbering ancestors Myrddin put in my head'll come back.'

Morrow had sent us to Scabbard, so they must've been safe to tell. I told them all about Myrddin and the magic and the ancestors. Scabbard's stylus never stopped moving. I'd be sketching turtles if I had to listen to the shite coming out my own mouth.

'Enid, your health will only get worse without sleep.'

'That sounds an awful lot like it won't get any better with it.'

'You need to give yourself time. It's easy to forget that you're not the person you used to be. You're a survivor. And even a single moment can cause weeks' worth of suffering.'

'When's it end?' My voice came out hoarser than I'd expected. Hearing it made my eyes itch.

'Some people fight to survive every day of their life.'

I couldn't go on this way. Exercise was the only peace I knew and it wasn't possible in my condition. There were exercises I could do but not the kind I needed. 'What am I supposed to do?'

Scabbard's bottom line was they could give me paths but I'd have to find the one that worked for me. They emphasized the work bit.

They went through a breathing exercise with me, except they called it a meditation exercise and kept telling me to slow down like it was a driving exercise. They wanted me to treat every movement I made as seriously and with as much attention as I would've given to any rep form. And I wasn't allowed to write off anything that happened during meditation.

'So what, I just take it?'

'Just slow down enough to give yourself different options for a response. Start by taking enough time to come up with at least two.'

It sounded fine and reasonable when they said it, but I didn't remember the ancestors being a fine and reasonable bunch. What I wanted was a way to sleep and shut them out when I woke up.

'We don't have any drugs to treat magic, but I'll make sure you get MFs help manage the anxiety.'

I still had all the old ones. Living with and managing didn't seem close to a solution. I inhaled fine but exhaled sobbing. 'I can't.' I couldn't live my life like this.

Scabbard kneeled in front of me and offered their hands. I grabbed them and clung to them. 'Breathe with me.'

My breath was a pull and a push. I pulled deep from my nose and my mouth all the way down to my diaphragm. I exhaled without stopping, holding. My VO2 max was high enough some doctors completely forgot I'd been a smoker.

Scabbard had said that might happen. I let my thought go and went back to breathing, pulling and pushing.

They squeezed my hands. I opened my eyes. The pulling and pushing faded to the background but it wasn't gone. I looked at Scabbard, really looked at them. They had a turtle shell face all smooth and oval with a thin ridged nose down the middle.

I reached back to pulling and pushing the air. It was slow but it was there and I was there. It was harder to stay lost when I had something to focus on. I didn't feel lost. I didn't know if I felt anything at all. I was just doing and maybe that was better. I pulled, pushed.

I let go of Scabbard's hands. 'I don't know how long I can keep this up, but I'm going to try.'

'Good. And when you feel tired, please try to sleep.'

Ags and I waited at the reception desk as the receptionist went over the medications, chewing. Every upward glance went to Ags, flat and skull-boring. He stepped a little more behind me and the wheelchair each time.

We waited until we'd left the offices to say anything. 'I need to try sleeping but not in my room.'

He knew a place. He went there to meditate sometimes. It was a room and a replica of an ancient holy place. Nobody knew what religion used it, only that the original had been unearthed in Loegria.

Morrow had given him special permission to enter the room. The Court kept it closed to the general public because no one had ever decided whether to use it as a museum or a place for spiritual experience. Morrow let him use it for healing and meditation because it was respectful and in line with the purpose of the original.

He scanned his tag. 'I think I might be the only one let in except for the bots.'

'Thanks for sharing.'

The door opened to a long a wide room with a low-ceiling for a boxy effect. The walls were white and tan tiles covered the floor. There weren't any window walls only the rectangle grid of windows you'd see back home. Metal-bottomed seating cushions hooked together in blue-green rows on either side of a wide empty aisle from the back and stopped just short of the front. A table as high as a bar in a pub had been covered in a white sheet that fell to the floor and had been pushed against the front wall.

I didn't know what religion had last used it, but I recognized a community rec room when I saw one. A lot of poorer religious communities didn't have the money for their own building. It didn't matter what the faith, they needed space just like any of us.

'Did it come in these colors?' My voice echoed down the room.

Something thunked under the covered table. Ags and I shared a look of raised eyebrows and mouths ready to snarl in disgust. Ags reached his hand out in the air, grabbed and yanked. The white sheet flew down the aisle only slightly more convincingly than a child in a right shite Halloween costume.

Gigi and Lathe were under the table. Naked. I pulled an inhale and pushed an exhale. I could be disgusted. I could be angry. That was two and they both sounded fair under the circumstances. Ags had gone with both, too.

He stalked down the aisle, screaming at them as they grabbed their clothes and bundled them in their arms. Gigi kept coughing up smoke. Her eyes seemed more watering than crying. Lathe had lost all the deep sunned tan in his face.

Ags yelled with the table behind him with his knees slightly bent and his arms slightly out, blocking them. Gigi and Lathe gathered as fast as they could, staying down and crawling to save time. Gigi crawled into her robe and stood first. Lathe stood into his. She grabbed Lathe's arm before his head came out the top. They ran down the aisle, passed me, and continued down the corridor. They left the scent of pot.

Ags slumped to the ground in front of the table. His head thunked against the edge. I wheeled into the room just enough to look straight at him from the far end of the aisle.

'I'm gonna go shower.'

He nodded and offered to take me back the apartments. I told him I'd get a staffbot.

'I have to go anyway to apologize to Manon.'

I let him wheel me back. It was the sincerest way I could wish him good luck, for his peace and Manon's.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Manon, July 9, 3110 CE

I grabbed a bottom corner of the mattress and pulled. I didn't stop until the whole other half landed on the floor, which was fine because staffbots had the schedule of hotel housekeeping but the mentality of whoever did surgeon's implements. I dropped my end and pushed from the other side all the way to the door.

I took the blanket off the vanity mirror and wrapped it around my shoulders like the goddamn cape of sorrow it was. It trailed on the ground behind me as I gathered the sports drinks I'd room-serviced off the table. I'd been crying this entire time, so I had to keep hydrated or I'd get a black-out-drunk-hangover-level headache. I lined up the biodegradable bottles along the side of the mattress, but not the vanity side, in case I stopped crying long enough for me to apply today's makeup.

I stepped onto the mattress-it had to be made from the descendant of infomercial foam because the sports drinks stayed erect. I jumped a couple times to make sure, and they moved about as much as a county fair's knock-down bottles. I huddled up with my back against the door and untucked my tablet from under my arm. I floated it around to get the best angle while I adjusted my cape for max comfiness. I found the angle, brought the tablet in to set the timer, and sent it back. I didn't need to make a face. I was documenting my current face once an hour, so if I died of dehydration before I opened the door a certain perfectly-toned ass would feel as guilty as he should.

I caught his aura outside my door as though magically cued by finishing my long-term sadness preparations. 'Go away.'

'Manon, I'm so sorry. Please let me explain.'

'How about...no!'

He didn't get it and was incapable of getting it. The future seemed pretty feminist, so any sex-gender probably took the same flack for a sex tape, but I didn't have any foundation Loegria, future Loegria. Agreeance lived his entire life here and made all sorts of names for himself. The first thing I'd done was have a sex tape released and distributed without my consent-it was a socioeconomic death sentence. I'd be forever known as the Sex-Tape Kid without any Butch Agreeance to stick out the same level of stigmatic repercussions with me.

My tablet buzzed beside me with a new message. Oh my fucking god, he'd texted me through the door. It was nice knowing how desperate he was to make it up to me, but I still didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing I'd read his message. I forwarded it to Morgue without opening it. Thank god she knew exactly what I'd done and sent me a message with his message inside-I loved Morgue.

Apparently it'd been a case of just business that'd gotten hacked when the Head of Security themself left their tablet unlocked. If I'd had any higher standing in Court, this would be like an inescapable-fate level of scandal. But no, I'd only achieved insta-celebrity as the Sex-Tape Kid.

I'd had to put that name out in forums on anon to keep the less catchy Intersex of the Night from sticking. That and fighting some up-in-my-box troll over how my suggested name wasn't promoting pedophilia had taken up most of my morning. The dude needed to watch a classic homoromantic asexual flick sometime.

'Manon, I know you don't want to talk to me right now, but if there's anything I can do to make it up to you, please let me know. Now, or anytime in the future, as long as it's illegal.'

My tablet buzzed. He'd sent the exact same offer in a text. I considered blocking him, but he seemed so sincere, enough that my anger could only hold out for a month max. My pain was too raw to give him any relief by response for now, so I let him walk away unrelieved.

I texted Morgue once I stopped sensing his aura. Her aura took his place outside the door in about ten minutes. I used the edge of my blanket to dab my eyes, but the tears kept coming. I bit the algae cap off a sports drink and knocked it back. I floated the bottle and cap into the hermetically sealing trashcan-it prevented eau-de-overnight-trash-in-the-sun.

My tablet buzzed. I should've guessed Morgue wouldn't strain her voice to talk through a door. That, or she wanted to keep our private conversation from the Alloparents. I woke my tablet and read her message.

'Sorry, but my life is ruined. I should probably just stay here and deal with the ocean leaking out of my body.'

'If you don't want to be recognized, we can change your face, your body-you'd be a completely different person.'

'Thanks, but I love how I look. I mostly want to have a future outside pornography-although if there are royalties, I'll take them.'

'What? You're not guarding me forever?' She sent a bunch of animated, big-eyed and pouting emojis. 'Also, you're a psiber, so you're contractually obligated to deal with melties once you've got nothing as important as guarding yours truly to do.'

That was news. I searched 'psiber contractual obligations' and it turned out adult film would've been a better career path outside of guarding Morgue. A ton psibers who weren't in Court all day suffered some form of PTSD. They couldn't even get rid of the tech that made them psibers without tearing up vital organs and killing themselves, which hadn't stopped about 30% of them from trying. They basically had to fight every day for the rest of their lives because so few lived to the psiber career's 60-year retirement age.

'Can I guard you forever? Can that be thing?'

'Sure, except I'm not living forever. You'd have to pass to one of my children. I suggest Mauve-she's ambitious enough to make enemies for the cause.'

Great, I had my whole life planned out for me. I knocked back another sports drink. I'd either have to leave my room or piss in the trashcan at this rate.

'Morgue.'

'Yeah?'

'I don't feel better. I feel trapped.'

'Let's go on a roadtrip-just you and me.'

'Where to?'

'Still want to see Mother Lake?'

I thought she knew people who knew who ran the industry. This was so much more fucking convenient than I could've expected. I stood up, adjusted my blanket so it hid everything above my knees except my head, and opened the door.

'Let's do it. Excuse me.'

I shot off to bathroom too fast to hear Morgue's reply, but it couldn't have been negative.

A staffbot handed me a cotton candy blue rolling suitcase. I asked them to toss it on the mattress, unzipped. I tossed in a couple sports drinks for the journey. Mother Lake Industries was a little over an hour's ride by dogbot, but we'd stay a whole week.

I went to the shelves hollowed out in the wall and started throwing clothes over my shoulder. The ancestors made sure they stayed folded all the way into the suitcase. I packed seven everyday robes, seven evening occasion robes just in case, a nightgown, a sexy nightgown, and a backup for each. Each of my seven days of underwear got backup and sexy versions as well. Morgue said we'd have to get special travel gear for the ride, so that was one thing to worry about.

I zipped up the front and turned the bag over. It had a separate compartment for shoes-getting stranded in the future had its perks. I packed three different everyday sandals, three different sexy sandals, and my favorite pair of shower shoes. Mother Lake Industries provided shower shoes with the rest of their complementaries, but I'd customized mine with platform heels and my own signature carved into the plastic band.

I unlatched the accessory bag from the suitcase for my makeup. The inside had adjustable elastic straps sheer but sturdy pockets to keep everything and their caps in place. It was possible I'd get inspired by something or someone there, so I packed all of it to be safe and reattached the bag.

I saw myself in the mirror when I looked up. My whole face had puffed up and my eyes were almost swollen shut, but the tears had stopped. Thankfully, part of that travel gear included a full head covering mask to keep out Adban sand and Dog's Back stank.

Building Mother Lake Industries in the Dog's Back was counterintuitive to the point of hipsterish outrageity. Nobody wanted to go to a stanky old swamp even if mosquitoes that sucked human blood weren't a thing anymore, so it was great for privacy. But apparently Mother Lake kept up an interactive exhibit/theme park and advertised it all over the fucking trams. They'd had the gall and/or total lack of foresight to build it open-air, so the park guests wore suits and masks at all times as though the theme were hazmat masquerade. It would've been cool instead of absurdly cynical if the real theme hadn't been future tech.

Morgue and I and the staffbots toting our luggage met in the courtyard. I thought I'd been prepared, but she'd packed three full-sized rolling suitcases, triply prepared. After a quick adjustment to her purple flower crown in her log's virtual mirror, we were ready to hit the Doghouse.

I slumped forward, but I had to hunch to rest my head between Morgue's shoulders, hurting my back. I moved my hands to the golden fur behind me and leaned back, but every time the dogbot's paws pounded the sand, I turned into a fucking bobblehead. Elate had a private jet. We needed a private jet.

You'd think riding around a dogbot like a horse would be scenic. Too bad we lived in the middle of the goddamn Adban and its duney sea of sand that was basically dirt that never stayed wet. You looked to the left, sand. You looked to the right, sand. It looked exactly the same to the surprise of exactly no one. On a very rare occasion the top of some buried building poked out of the endless ennui of sand, and Morgue would realign the dogbot to go further out of our way to avoid breaks in visual boredom.

Morgue reached back, tapped my black-robed arm, and pointed ahead. Difference, sweet, sweet, difference-I didn't care if it was a mirage, but Morgue wouldn't have played me like that. A spiky line of green so dark it was black stretched across the horizon like a shitty old comb with dark clumps stuck to the teeth. The spikes got taller as we got closer and the clumps separated into layers on layers of trees. Somehow all the trees stood up and out of the water like they'd collectively decided they were cool with a waist-high waterline.

Morgue slowed down as we reached the edge of the swamp. Dark, murky water moved thick and slow under a long wooden bridge tied between pairs of trees by the trees' own vines or roots or something. She realigned the dogbot toward the bridge.

Someone in a bright green mask contoured to look like a harlequin puppet's caricature of a face flicked through something on their tablet at the bridge kiosk. Morgue rode up to the kiosk and the attendant straightened up. You couldn't tell with the mask, but I'd bet they were still looking at the tablet.

The attendant raised their arms and swayed them from side to side. 'Welcome one, welcome all, to the wonderful world of Mother Lake!' They transitioned to jazz hands. They gave us three seconds of jazzing then immediately folded their arms back on the desk. 'If you'd like admission, I have to do a full scan. Removing your masks or suits anytime out-of-doors is a health risk and discouraged, but you don't have to dismount for the scan.'

'Do it,' said Morgue.

Apparently they'd been playing around on a business-issue tablet because they pressed something on it to start the invisible scan. 'Welcome, Morgue and Manon. You have a one week all-access reservation including a private meet-and-greet with Mother Lake Gen 4, herself...every day.'

I hadn't expected Mother Lake to be a person or an A.I. It did make sense that they'd be an A.I. since they were a person. That way, they could be the theme park's eternal mascot and the industries' eternal face.

'Confirmed.'

They placed two, adjustable rubber bracelets in bright green on the desk. I floated them to us and they were more hideously, plastic-palm-frond green up close.

'Please wear your bracelet at all times. It will be scanned automatically and admit your all-access package. You may cross the bridge at your leisure and our staff will assist you with your luggage and dogbot.'

Morgue walked the dogbot across to a wooden platform with dark planks half under a green and black pinstriped canopy. At the end of the covered half was a clear plastic tunnel just like the decontamination tunnel at the police station. It led into a wide window wall of the kind of black-tinted glass so often found in a douchebag's indoor sunglasses. A team of staff in those awful green masks and green and black pinstripe suits walked down the tunnel.

I followed Morgue off the dogbot, climbing down by taking full fists of hair-thankfully, the bots couldn't feel. The team grapevined out of the tunnel in a blast of wind and a god-awful mix of country and found object. I wished I wasn't wearing a mask so they had to look at the disgust they'd forced on my face. I'd still tip them if that was a thing because it wasn't the parts' fault that the system forced them to crap out this aural shit.

The dance and mercifully the song ended with a group freeze pose. A second blast of music cut off my sigh of relief. The group flung out their jazz hands. The music transitioned after three seconds to an ambient version of the found-country theme song. The staff welcomed us and split into three groups for the luggage, the dogbot, and us.

Morgue and I followed our group into the decontamination tunnel. The mist, music, and moving belt started together as soon as the doors shut. The staff faced us the entire time, singing, tirelessly, tunelessly singing. A 3D map opened over their heads, a much needed but hopelessly insufficient distraction from the ear-assacre.

The MLI theme park, MoLak, was pronounced exactly like in the howling poem apparently every white hipster had memorized and felt the need to quote at least once in my presence to reassure themselves they were on my level. I groaned, but the music drowning my will to live drowned that, too. Someone had approved this. If MLI operated anything like the businesses I knew, an entire board of people had approved this.

MoLak's seven artificial islands over the swamp connected with each other by artificial tree-root bridges. Our human-sized sushi belt was taking us to the central island, Mok 1, which was the first pun so far that hadn't personally offended me-I actually found it chucklish cute. Moks 2-7 surrounded Mok 1 in an evenly spaced semicircle. All the islands of MoLak, ugh, sat in front of MLI, built on an artificial island bigger than the seven Pangea-ed.

The belt stopped and so did the mist and music. The doors behind the staff opened and they grapevined out, backward.

I threw my arms around Morgue's shoulders. 'This isn't a theme park,' I sobbed. 'It's camp, goddamn camp.'

Morgue shrugged. 'Price of admission.'

'I nearly died.'

'That reminds me,' she pulled off her mask, and shook out her silver hair, 'it's great to get back to filtered air.' She said it with a stand-up worthy deadpan, expressionless as a staffbot.

My mom used to make a similar joke about the fruits and vegetables at the grocery store. She'd point at the bolded, glaring 'fresh' and say, "Fresh to you."

I chuckled but also started crying. I pulled off my mask and met Morgue's eyes. The silent shakes exploded into sobs tearing straight through my boobless chest.

Morgue snapped her fingers and a green and black blur appeared out of nowhere. She put my hands on her shoulders and led me through the now indistinguishable building we'd entered. We entered an elevator at some point whose ambient theme music inspired louder, throat-tearing sobs so I wouldn't have to hear it anymore.

Morgue took my hands off her shoulders and guided me by the arms to a seat. I recognized the combination of soft and hard that let you jump but wouldn't waste your booze. I patted my hands around for a tissue box. Morgue put one in my lap. I pushed my glasses onto my head and wiped my face.

I knew this suite was serious swank as soon as I saw the space between the two king beds, enough for its two full-sized desks to fit someone between them. The window-wall on Morgue's side, of course, opened to a 'conservatory' with a dining table, chairs, and a fucking fountain in the middle of a jungle of all real plants. I had the wall side. I couldn't see the suite door from the bed, but I caught one door of what had to be a walk-in closet.

Morgue ran her hand along the bottom frame of the generic hotel landscape in front of her. It faded into pixelly flowers that folded in on themselves like holographic origami and left behind a mirror. She unzipped one of the suitcases lined against the wall under it and pulled out a brush.

'If you want to use the bathroom, go ahead. I'll be a while.'

I walked around the wall. A short but still qualifiable hall stretched out opposite the closet. I opened the door at the end. The bathroom had a clear-walled shower that could've held all the Alloparents, a jacuzzi cut into the fucking marble of floor's accent corner, and a long counter with three sinks and enough space for three rolling suitcases full of makeup. They provided everything from towels and toothbrushes to bathrobes and personal shaving lasers. The toilets didn't have golden seats, but those self-opening, -closing, -cleaning, -deodorizing models couldn't have been cheap. The optional bidet and hot air ass-blower came as an eco-conscious consolation prize.

Morgue was still brushing by the time I'd finished using the toilet and washing my face. I left my robe in the bathroom, hung my travel gear in the walk-in closet and sat on my bed in the soft, fuzzy bathrobe.

She lowered her brush. Her hair fell like the silk sheets in the closet. 'How're you doing?'

'I'm not really better, so I need to get involved in something.' It'd give me the time and space I needed to process things later without turning into a randomly emoting but barely communicating human being.

'Well,' she dragged the word out into two words, 'there are restaurants and rides, and we can have the meet-and-greet anytime but only for an hour a day.'

'If Mother Lake's in that much demand, they should really consider more clones.'

'One's easier to control.'

I knelt in front of my suitcase on the short but soft carpet. I needed a new robe to wear under the safety suit and mask in the closet. I stopped in mid-zip. 'Oh my god. Morgue, please tell me you aren't on the MLI board.'

'How boring would that be. My parents could testify if they weren't fertilizing a tree in the middle of our apartment complex.'

She and her sisters were born socialites. Morgue and Morrow followed Elate to Court after her first marriage and became psibers to be Court fashionable. Their parents wired them with the best and latest tech, and their kids got even better, later but less tested tech. Morgue's kids got 50% tested. Elate's one got 25%. MLI hadn't released the tech to the public because the tests still weren't finished.

'So, what do you want to do, Honored Guest?'

'Restaurant first. Maybe we could have a meet-and-greet on the rides?'

'Genius.'

We zero-bumped.

We waited for Mother Lake on a green and black bench beside a balloon hawker and their pushcart of green and black balloon animals. The hawker targeted a masked family walking down Mok 5's cobblestone main street. They grabbed a handful of balloons and the checker-print air hose and crouched down, noisily twisting the balloons together at the children's eye level-the kids didn't stand a chance. They ran over, clapping and shrieking in some kind of ritual happy dance I'd seen at least twice in the past thirty minutes.

The kids cut off in mid-shriek, their gloved hands curling to point. Someone slightly taller than Enid thanks to a jade mask that looked like water flowing up an androgynous face into a liquid crown walked around them. Their suit had a diamond pattern in black and jade. The stranger gave the kids a little wave, barely opening their hand, behind their back.

Morgue rocked off the bench. 'I swear you Lakes get slower every generation.'

Mother Lake bowed her head at a side angle straight out of Uncanny Valley. 'My apologies Morgue, Manon, but we've included a clause allowing forty minutes of travel time.' She turned her head over her shoulder, her neck still doing the U-bend. 'I saw a particularly fat pigeon eating out of a restaurant wastebin and stopped to watch for...thirty-eight minutes.'

'One, I think you might need to get your personality recalibrated,' I said. 'Two, how the fuck are there pigeons here?'

'Three,' said Morgue, 'the minimum wait time on this island just jumped to fifty minutes.'

'Please, allow me to lead us to the nearest ride.' Mother Lake spun out of her bow and glided with her hands out to her sides. We ran to catch up with her. Morgue took one gloved hand, so I took the other. I could practically feel Mother Lake's artificial smile growing under her mask. 'Shall I tell you about the pigeons?'

'I can't die happy until I know.'

'It's not public knowledge, but the Dog's Back is a wildlife sanctuary.'

MLI had dedicated centuries to tech that purified the water, air, and soil. They'd reintroduced all the indigenous plants and animals behind a facade of artificial plants and VR projections. MoLak was just a front to net the rations necessary to keep up the sanctuary, and all the new tech on display were rejected prototypes.

I let go of Mother Lake's hand and walked up to the end of line for the "Wormhole to the Future." 'Why keep inconveniencing everyone with the suits and masks and warnings?'

'It's part of the thrill.'

I shuffled forward. I'd pegged MLI as a classic evil corporation, so the fact that Mother Lake made MLI sound reasonable made me uncomfortable.

'Tell me about the barrier.'

Mother Lake put a U-bend in her neck to tilt her head.

'Please, could you not?'

She snapped her head and neck back into place like the end of a tape measure. Thank god we hadn't had the meet-and-greet at the restaurant.

'There's like this magic dome over maybe half the city of Logres.' The ancestors said it was magic, but they called most tech magic.

'Ah, the rain shield. It neutralizes the acid before the rain can finish falling.'

'Why isn't it-why aren't all your purifying tech everywhere? Countrywide, nationwide, worldwide.'

'There isn't enough clean energy in Loegria, much less Logres. It's difficult to speak for the rest of the world.'

A handful of countries had the resources and used the tech to purify all their land and any surrounding waters. More had the resources, but were waiting for their population, specifically poor population, to decrease before they applied the tech nationwide. 80% were in the same position as Loegria.

I grabbed the metal divider between the lines and leaned back. Mother Lake pulled herself onto the top bar and sat with her head propped in her hands. Morgue leaned on the divider opposite us with her hands in her suit pockets and her head casually over her shoulder.

'Selfie time.' I searched my pockets, but I hadn't brought my tablet.

'Please, allow me,' said Mother Lake.

She reached out a curled hand and a screen floated down from the metal rafters showing our classy ass poses. The screen copied itself on either side of the original. It kept copying until a full reverse panorama blocked out all the other guests in line. She opened her hand, spreading her fingers, and the screens separated and raised, lowered, or tilted. They found our most dramatic angles like a virtual hall of funhouse mirrors with face and body recognition.

'Are you ready?' she asked.

Morgue and I sounded off. 'Ready!'

'Say masquerade!'

We did but I didn't like it.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Baoyu, July 9, 3110 CE

Gigi scanned into Records from the side door. The department only opened the door for us because Gigi had made an appointment with Vivid. The receptionist asked us to take a seat while we waited.

We walked toward the armchairs, couch, and loveseat side by side. We broke apart with the loveseat coming up in front of us. I walked around its side and hopped over the arm backward into a seat. Gigi and I collided.

I turned my head. She must've vaulted over its back into the seat at the same time. She sighed and slumped over, leaning her entire side against my back.

I braced my arms against my knees to stay mostly upright. 'You're so heavy.' The weight strained my voice.

'Sucks for you.' She pulled a palm-sized book out of the woven, hemp-fiber bag over her shoulder and now dragging on the floor. She turned onto her back.

I choked a laugh and swatted her arm. She passed a second book into my flapping hand. I set the hardcover on my lap and reset my arms to brace from the elbows so I could turn the pages.

It was _A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism._ I opened it and it released the familiar smell of old books: vanilla and almonds and flowers. It was comforting in a way that made eyes sting with tears, but Gigi would force me to take over Pot Bot's cleaning detail if I got liquid on the book. I buried my face in my elbow.

I'd gotten to the part of the first chapter describing how the ends defined magnetic interaction while the middle had 'no sensible mutual action' when an argon blue fingernail tapped the top of the page. Vivid in blue robes, blue makeup, and a slight glow, smiled at me beside her glowing, black-robed wife. Morrow's smile barely curled her lips.

'I'm really sorry,' said Vivid, 'but there's a censor beast that needs to be dealt with immediately, so I can't help you today.'

'I, however, am at your disposal,' said Morrow.

Vivid kissed Morrow's cheek and ran to the hall on the left of the reception desk, waving one hand behind her back without looking.

Gigi pushed off my back and we both sat up. She put her books back into her black, blue, and violet fiber bag. Morrow ambled around the loveseat and stopped in front of us with one arm propping the other under her chin.

'Yes?' said Gigi.

'It will be most efficient to split up.'

Records had two different archive rooms, public and private. Their databases contained exclusive files to expedite searches by reducing duplicate data. Anyone who searched the private archive had to be accompanied and monitored by someone with the appropriate security clearance, namely Morrow.

Gigi and I looked at each other. Gigi was a librarian. Having Morrow monitor her would probably impede her research speed and efficiency, especially if Morrow felt extra spiteful after her demotion. But it meant leaving Gigi and Lathe unguarded: I had no delusions that Mr. E was doing anything productive this morning.

'If you'd like to take your deliberations to a conference room, there are several, and I truly have nothing better to do.'

I got to my feet. 'No, we should get started. I'll follow you.'

I offered Gigi a hand and she took it. 'Come find me if you need a break.'

Like I'd forget who dealt the drugs in this relationship. I smiled and shook my head. 'Let's meet up for lunch and compare notes.'

It'd probably give us an idea of where to take our afternoon research. Also, Gigi never smoked before lunch unless I initiated it, so I doubted she'd want sex. Mr. E would be awake and at Vivid's side by the afternoon. I could call in my favor and send him to Gigi's side for the rest of the day.

Gigi saluted me and headed for the hall to the right of the reception desk. I followed Morrow down the other hall, all the way to the door at its end. I kept my eyes fixed on her dark, rounded shoulders, the least sensual part of her backside.

I'd only been sexually attracted to one other person in my entire life. I'd never spoken to them and they had to be dead, so if it hadn't matter before, it definitely didn't matter now. Morrow was physically opposite them in almost every way. Maybe I liked her glow.

Unfortunately, my feelings were still irrelevant since Morrow was monogamously married. It couldn't hurt to appreciate the thrill of being around her, though, as long as I didn't make her uncomfortable or offend her. The anticipation of being with her almost all day exponentially heightened that thrill.

Morrow scanned us into the private archive. The room was smaller than I'd expected at about the size of the principal's office. A circular, red stone slab levitated at the height of a tabletop in the center of the windowless room. Its long diameter could accommodate its two, levitating but back-supporting, red seats. Artificial natural light shown down from the ceiling's plants, but you could barely see them against the black tile. The same black tiles glittering faintly from flecks of gold in the stone covered every wall and even the floor.

Morrow sat in one seat and patted the other at her side. I did as directed. Her perfume or deodorant or something smelled like the almond-vanilla of books blended with earthy, spicy patchouli. It was much more enjoyable than anticipated.

She tapped four opposite points on the stone slab. The screens on all four walls activated. 'You don't have any implants, do you?'

I didn't, but it was something I'd have to bring up with the family now that we were here for good. Our lack of tech prevented us from accessing a lot of conveniences the Court had to offer. It also shut us out entirely from the virtual world that overlaid ours. According to Gigi, we only experienced about 70% of the environment without the full set of vr-receptive tech.

'No. Why do you ask?'

'The unofficial name for an archive room is "datacar," an abbreviation of "data download carousel."'

You set up your search criteria and the chairs spun around the table. Each wall displayed a result, not a link, often broken up into smaller squares with a maximum of 64 pages per wall. As you spun, the walls automatically displayed the next four, so you never looked at the same result twice. Any video or audio data linked straight to your tech that played it in a specific processor, so you didn't have to lose focus. The archive code on the links caused your video and audio processors to delete the footage as soon as it had played. The wall results had the same code but specified for the tech that recognized the data as text and static images. Somehow, you left the datacar without any of the original data, yet your memories of it stayed intact.

'That's not terrifying. And there's no physical toll?'

'It's roughly equivalent to binge-watching for twelve hours but less exhausting than total immersion over the recommended three hours.'

Still terrifying. I must've made a face because she giggled behind her opened hand.

'You turn around and take back wall. I'll handle these three.'

'Please...don't spin.' I didn't want to get motion sick, especially not in front of her.

She gave me a fully curling copper smile. 'I promise.'

I searched 'Mother Lake Industries' and 'A.I.' My first result broke my wall into all 64 squares. I waved the first square into my hands to read. Flipping up or to the left sent the next square's data to the square I held.

The result was an 800-year-old paper on MLI's Indoor Lake series of A.I. The series experiment spanned three centuries in its attempt to produce an A.I. who acted and believed as though they were fully human. According to the abstract, A.I. tech itself culminated in the creation of IL 6-7, Code Name: Erie, also considered the series' greatest failure.

I jumped down to the section on the IL 6s. They physically resembled current A.I. and ran on sunlight and nutrients from a mixture of water and soil. Their brains, however, had the plasticity of a child's, and they had no programmed behaviors or inhibitions.

The sophistication of the IL 6 brain made the organ so vulnerable to overheating that they had to stay in climate-controlled environments their entire life. Several IL 6s suffered severe mental health debilitations from confinement. IL 6-41 escaped confinement, but their brain fused when exposed to the afternoon heat, terminating all processes.

I scrolled past the rest of the general findings to the report on Erie, she/her. The scientists started her brain function in a fake orphanage. She received primary and secondary schooling over the course of a week. A fake family living in the poor residential district of the sprawling underground city built for testing adopted Erie two weeks later.

She showed interest in attending classes at the nearby community college before a month had passed. Her family encouraged her interests but explained that they didn't have the funds for it. The scientists turned Erie's search for funds into a 12-year Odyssey of exposure to philosophies, perils, and tragedies, including the staged murder of her family.

Other IL 6s went through similar Odysseys, and she even met some of them, but none of theirs lasted over a decade. Fake social services assigned a different agent to each of them, and the A.I. reported to that agent once a week. S.S. asked the A.I. to keep their meetings secret, but randomly enforced the confidentially.

The sidebar from my original search linked papers that referenced whatever page I had in hands. Several criticized the interview system as the greatest flaw in the illusory environment. None of the human participants had to report to S.S., so they blamed it for turning an aesthetic difference between A.I. and humans into a fundamental one. Others claimed that the A.I.'s awareness of their differences had been inevitable due to their energy sources despite the lifestyle changes made by the human participants to simulate similar needs.

Erie never displayed awareness of herself as an artificially created being, but had told her agent that she wasn't human. Many of the IL 6s reached this conclusion, after which the scientists typically terminated them. They had allowed Erie to continue operating for two years afterward. A linked paper called the interviews 'a two-year snuff of humanity.'

'Morrow, do you mind if I pull up a video?'

She glanced at my wall over her shoulder. 'I went through the Erie videos a couple hours ago. I can help you sift if you're looking for something particular.'

'Is there one where she's being egregiously inhuman?'

Morrow sent a video to the square in my hands and set the cursor past the one-hour mark. She grabbed and pulled the air with one hand. The display rose off the square screen into a cube. The fish-eye footage re-oriented to the center of the cube and filled out in color and 3D from all sides of the images. Subtitles appeared along the bottom: 'Why didn't you help them?'

I held a finger over the front face of the cube and the video played.

'Violence is a ritual of human culture.'

'I know you believe you aren't human, but even humans stop a fight between their dogs.'

'Sure, I live with humans, but I have as much claim to them as I do the cockroaches in the apartment. I like the reminder that I'm not alone, but I've never stopped a hungry mother from eating their newborn children much less a territorial dispute.'

'Mediation by a third party is also a ritual of human culture.'

'True, but mediation requires the consent of both parties.'

'You never asked if they would consent.'

'The one party wasn't interested in the words of the other. I didn't think they'd be interested in more words from me. They probably would've considered me another target for it.'

'You didn't call the police.'

'The police would've threatened more violence. It's against my culture to force members of the same species to harm each other.'

'Your culture or your ideology?'

'Culture. I'm not interested in defining what I think and feel into a coherent system.'

'A culture is typically shared.'

'I'm sharing with you.'

'Erie,' the agent lowered their tablet and stylus, 'what if someone threatened you?'

'I have been threatened. I prefer to run away, but when I have to defend myself, I respond with equal and opposite force.'

'What if you couldn't run? What if you couldn't fight?'

'I would die.'

'Let's say you could save yourself, but the only way to do that is to ask for human help.'

'I would still die.'

'Why?'

'I'm assuming you left out what the human would have to do to save me because it's violence.'

The agent laughed as they rubbed a temple with one hand.

Erie leaned forward on her knees. She wore a brown skirt long enough to hide her shoes with patches of color cut from faded graphic tees. The sleeves of her loose, black top dangled past her hands and fingers. Mismatched buttons ran in a line from the shoulders to the hanging ends.

'I know you worry about me. I worry about me too, mostly because my culture's going to stop innovating once I'm gone. But that's also why I like our meetings. Just knowing that I'm leaving it behind in these recordings makes me hopeful.'

'What do you hope?'

'Someone like me will use it to innovate again.'

'Erie, it's against the confidentiality agreement to share anything in a session with other clients.'

She shrugged and her sleeves oscillated from her fingertips in random directions. 'When data is stored, it leaks.'

The video stopped but there were still a few minutes left. I looked at Morrow's opposite-direction profile. Her eyes scanned the three walls without a move from her head.

'That was her final interview. They terminated her outside the agent's office.'

'Why?'

'She worked at a hardware repair store at the time. They suspected she knew about A.I. and planned to disseminate the knowledge. They feared her voice would cause all the other A.I. to opt out of humanity as well.'

So they'd killed a 12-year-old. They'd killed all the other IL 6s at 10 years if not earlier.

I'd assumed from humanity's desire to seek out intelligent life that respecting it was part of our collective culture. It didn't make sense for that change even if we'd been the ones to create the intelligence. The point wasn't who, if anything, created who: the Other simply had to be alive and intelligent enough to convince not to kill us.

Worse, it sounded like they'd set Erie up for termination by making a hardware repair store in Aisle City in the first place. 'Why'd they let the ILs near computers?'

Morrow said the city used old tech without internet functionality and none of the ILs were backward compatible. The human participants' contracts forbade them from bringing any modern tech with them. They lost all contact with the outside world for duration of their stay.

'Did they find a message?'

Morrow sent me another video. Black space spread like a stain from a dot at the center and filled the entire cube. She hadn't moved the playback cursor, so I started from the beginning. A low-quality whale song filled the room, complete with an occasional burst of static. I stopped the recording.

Telling your friends you had a top secret message and then sending them an animal video was the kind of joke I'd expect from a kid. Baozhu still sent me links to ridiculous articles. They'd killed Erie over that stupid joke.

My tears broke apart the black light of the cube in their aura. You could track them until they fell out the bottom of the cube. They'd vanished completely by the time they hit the black tiled floor.

Morrow turned on her chair to face me and reached out a hand. I moved closer without turning away from my wall so it touched my shoulder. She squeezed my shoulder and rubbed my upper back.

'Are you okay?'

I told myself everyday that I was fine because that was what I needed to here. That was what I wanted Morrow to hear, but she didn't need to. I gave my elbow a break and let the floor tile's tech take care of the tears.

'No, no. I will be, but right now I'm just not.'

'Take your time. I'll let Gigi know we'll be a little late for lunch.'

I nodded and unpaused the audio. It was eight full minutes of whale song. If it meant anything, nobody knew. Humans had never learned to speak whale and the static didn't match up to Morse, binary, or any other known code. I listened to the whole thing.

Nia sat at the head of the conference room table made dining table once all of us had taken seats. This was our group project. I doubted I was alone in my relief that someone had taken charge of the organization. She'd even made a place for Anon's holograph beside Enid before we'd arrived.

A fountain's trickling emanated from Anon's projection, broken by a periodic tock of bamboo against stone and the splash of emptied water. It startled me the first time I heard it. Nia clapped her hands for the staffbots and startled me again. I didn't know why I was so jumpy. Perhaps because the relief being honest with Morrow made me want to continue being honest. Somehow that was terrifying.

Nia filled her plate but folded her hands. 'How'd the research go?'

Anon waved their holographic fork around while chewing their steak. They swallowed and stuck out their tongue with a pant. 'MLI's maybe not so bad? Mother Lake has the shittiest personality I've ever encountered in an A.I., but MoLak's actually a campy front for an eco-sanctuary. Not the good, cult classic kind of campy but the straight up fuckery of real animals CGI-ed into singing a pet food jingle that's never leaving your head.'

Nia thanked Anon with an encouraging smile and sad, sympathetic eyes. She looked at me, the other researcher, and her eyes lit up. She didn't smile. She wasn't happy. She'd widened her eyes with alertness and I was sure they'd seen right through me.

So I dropped my face. 'Gigi found out MLI's A.I. are the only bot they haven't upgraded in centuries. I found out why.'

I told them about the IL series and Erie. I started crying again but I didn't bother hiding it: part of me wanted it to disturb them.

I'd been a litmus test. I'm sure they expected words, but the real offering was feeling, the sheer horror of it all. I didn't need them to understand anything except that we didn't face a question of whether or not to side with the A.I. We either sided with A.I. or MLI.

'MLI doesn't respect artificial life or intelligence. They create A.I. as human objects.'

'Then giving them magic and setting them loose won't solve shit,' said Enid.

Anon groaned. 'Thanks, resident-A.I. hater.'

'What do you mean?' asked Azhu.

'We're humans. Erie rejected parts of humans she didn't like. If they know magic's from humans, that'll fuck them up. They reject magic but run off from Logres. Then we've got melties with magic.'

Good point. Devastating, but good.

'Then...they can't know,' said Nia.

'If Alter gets the gene transfer to work, we'll have magic A.I. cells,' said Azhu. 'It'll be a lot easier to share the genes between the same kind of cells anyway.'

Unfortunately, that only solved half the problem. 'They need to know they, the ILs, fought and suffered for this. If they don't know they've taken their freedom from their creator, they'll never be free in their minds.' Especially if MLI played it off as a gift.

'So just let them upload the whole IL archive,' said Anon. 'With yesterday's tech, that'll take like seconds.'

Logistically, it seemed impossible, but it was exactly what we had to do. 'Anon, that's genius.'

'That's what they tell me.'

'Perfect,' said Nia. 'So we all know what we have to do?'

Enid tipped her head back and blew at the ceiling.

'Enid, what's wrong?'

'Ags and I walked in on Gigi fucking Lathe.'

I barely heard her over my pitting gut and drying mouth. I blinked and everyone was standing and shouting except Enid. She never looked down from the ceiling. Anon waved a holographic fork through her unmoving head. Nia cradled the sides of her head in both hands like it'd roll off without her support. Azhu flung an arm out in front of my face. I stared down at the food cooling on my plate.

It was my fault. We had an international crisis and it was my fault. Gigi and Lathe would probably be executed. My fault. It was all my fault because I'd said I could handle it. I couldn't. I knew I couldn't watch two people at the same time and I'd said it was fine. Now everything was on track for Arthur's tragedy all over again. I'd single-handedly reversed the fate we'd changed.

I lifted my eyes as far as they'd roll without raising my head. Everyone was a torso except for Enid. She must've felt my gaze because she pulled her eyes from the ceiling with the slightest tilt of her head. She stared at me over the shark-like angle of her jaw. She could've swallowed me but said instead: 'There's no sleeping tonight.'

Blood pricked my arms and legs like a thousand needles as it trickled back in. Enid was right. Yes, this was my fault, but maybe there was a solution we hadn't found yet.

I stood up so fast my chair banged the wall. The needles in my legs turned to knives, so I couldn't help shouting: 'I'm sorry.'

My family quieted down until all I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears. They must've thought I had the answer. I didn't.

'I said I'd handle it, but I couldn't do it. I should've asked for your help. I didn't. I'm sorry. I'm asking for your help now. Gigi's my friend. Please help me save her life.'

Nia reached behind her and grabbed the back of her chair. She lowered herself into the seat, her mouth pressing flatter, grimmer, at the same rate. 'I can ask the Head to erase the footage, but they're Mauve's dog. She'll want Alter to disappear for it.'

Azhu dropped into their seat to sound of spilling and splashing water. 'I don't see Alter objecting.'

'What kind of Sovereign is Alter?' asked Anon.

'Absolute shit-tier. Great scientist, though.'

Nia asked us to deal with the international crisis before moving forward with the question of the magic A.I. None of us objected, probably for reasons unrelated to my pathetic plea and apology.

I sat down. Both the tension and the energy drained out of my limbs. I'd never make up the trust I'd lost from them. All I could was do better. Not in doing more, but in getting help.

Erie had died from her honesty. No one died happy. I didn't believe in ghosts, but when I couldn't help myself, I knew them as restless, hungry creatures that depended on the living for sustenance. If you weren't careful, you might turn into a ghost before you'd died. Erie's honest life had prevented that.

Maybe it'd save me, too. So when dinner ended, I asked Azhu to wait for me. We stood alone in the staffbot-emptied room on either side of the door. I leaned my side against the painted wall for support. Azhu leaned with their elbow and hip for comfort.

'I used to steal your meds...and replace them with sugar tabs.'

My twin gaped. I counted the seconds from their last blink. Sixty-six, but maybe the wince that accompanied their smile didn't count as the next blink.

'That's literally all in the past,' they said, folding their arms over their chest.

'I've always thought you might've known.'

'Yeah.'

'I'm sorry for hurting you. I just couldn't ask for help myself. Not with Mom and Dad-'

'Got it. I know a great counselor if you need one.'

It was probably just the erratic blood surges, but I hadn't felt this light off drugs for years. 'I'm fine now, thanks. Are you?'

'I could use a second.'

I stepped outside. Ten minutes passed and they didn't come out. Fifteen. I scanned the door. Unlocked, it opened.

The room was empty.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Baozhu, July 9, 3110 CE

I didn't hurt. I didn't feel anything at all as I sank through the floor like a poorly rendered NPC-the power of Carents. Wondered if my ghost legs phasing through the ceiling under me startled anyone.

I hadn't expected a dim, pipe-lined tunnel under the conference room. Two staffbots walked around me without a word-heads down stayed down. I stopped phasing, but I turned on the nondetection app and went the other way.

A line of naked light strips ran straight down the tunnel but never branched perpendicular, leaving all the turns dark. I bet motion or pressure activated the intersection lights. I walked off the main line into the dark. Nothing. Might've been the nondetection.

I put one hand on the nearest mystery material pipe. It didn't have plastic's sticky-ishness. The hair in my ears didn't stand up from my nails scratching as I dragged my hand along like with metal.

I didn't know how long or far I walked. I only stopped when my pipe turned perpendicular and shot straight down. I followed it to the cool, gritty floor-maybe stone or concrete. I leaned against the maybe wall with the pipes over my head and at my side making a mini shelter. Like a mini-fridge, it couldn't back up the promise in its name but it was cute af while trying.

My laugh echoed down both ends of dark. No wonder the staffbots didn't say anything down here. I was pretty sure the Court builders had the tech to take out the echo, though. Unseen places, always getting the shaft. I'd had a lot practice with quiet crying, so nbd.

I put my hand to my face. It'd started without me. There was no one here, so I didn't bother wiping my eyes or nose. I'd heard tears left streaks because they cleaned your face. The snot didn't, but I'd always kinda liked the weird, sticky bridges it tried making between your face and body. It was the closest I'd ever get to being a spider, something, anything that wasn't me.

I guessed I wasn't the only one who felt that way. Ayu knew how depression meds worked, which meant he'd taken mine for a period of weeks at least. I knew he'd been into drugs-he'd never mastered a low-key high-I just hadn't known he'd been into my drugs.

I clamped my mouth shut, biting both lips to keep down the hiccups. My guts squeezed up in my body, leaving a gaping hole behind. They knotted around every organ and pulled tight, squishing the juices out my eyes and nose. They left the pulpy walls to grind dry against each other.

I slid sideways down to the floor and onto my side. The snot and tears slid sideways, too. I wished I had a pillow because holding the hiccups and the cries this long made me shake.

Carents had a silencing app. I didn't feel any different from applying it, but the screaming came as a relief. It must've worked because none of the sobs, snivels, or heaves echoed. They emptied all the snot and tears out of me, so I nothing but the shakes.

I knew better than to think about why I'd just cried myself hoarse and dry. Knowing better had never been a match for my train of thought. Ayu popped into my head like he owned the place, choo-choo. He walked into my room, the one back home.

My body slept on my queen-sized futon folded hot-dog double to cancel out the hard planes of the wooden cubbies under me. It was thin and threadbare because we'd had it before we'd had money, but I could barely commit to a person, much less the place I'd sleep every night until the economy said otherwise. I'd barely even decorated my room. I'd left that to the variety of cubbies and laundry baskets holding my games and clothes and school books. Anything I wanted to remember I kept on the laptop sitting on the overturned laundry basket in the corner. If I wanted to be healthy, I could squat and type comfortably at that height. If, like most days, I didn't, I could pull it onto the futon without catching a wire somewhere.

Ayu creeped on the balls of his feet past the jury-rigged squatting desk to my cubby pyramid. He reached into the pile of old pencil cases for the one with sequined mermaid tails I'd used in third grade and pulled out my pink, weekly pill organizer. He shook out one pill and put in another but from his pocket.

'Carents, is this a vision of the past or am I just imagining this?'

'It is a magical extension of your own predilection.'

Vague as fucking ever. There it went, my last fuck, wasted on my own damn curiosity instead of work or something. I really had to start hoarding those like a proper asexual dragon.

I curled up on the cool, paved floor and closed my eyes. At least in sleep I could trust myself not to dream.

I'd always been an early riser, but Carents woke me up even earlier than expected, 10 pm. I forgot I'd set pill-time alarms.

I pushed up off the floor. You'd think I'd bench-pressed a dugong instead of half my torso from the stiff, bone-deep ache in my arms. I rolled onto my knees-scratch that-the knives that had replaced my kneecaps for max knee-to-groin damage in the operation to turn me into a superhero. Not a bug, a feature.

I'd no one but myself to blame. Should never have taken up Mr. E on his escort mission. I would've banged my head against the paved floor if it hadn't meant having to get up on my arms again.

I pulled myself up by a pipe. I couldn't tell if it was the same one I'd followed here in the dark. I rubbed circles into my knees and checked my MP. The sleeping regen rate was higher than the linear decrease by the nondetection and silencing apps, so I'd actually gained all my MP back.

Carents said there was a cap on max MP, and I'd experienced the nonlethal 0-point, so I guessed we regened to the x-positive curve of some right-shifted, negative rational function. A vertical asymptote implied lots about running on empty and emptying, but I couldn't bring myself to care enough to extrapolate. I'd tried. Back to the headspace of the damned or whoever weren't bad enough for devil torture, just devilishly ignored.

No amount of rubbing made me want to try my knees out of here. I straightened up and the air just sighed out of me. If it'd been that easy, I'd have run out of here, too.

Back home, it'd been my parents. I had to peep around walls or through doors to see their real faces. I'd never seen them smile unless they knew one or both of us were watching. They loved each other, but they'd crawled out of poverty ahead of the rest of our family, making them the go-tos. The first time we'd looked through a cracked door had been a lot of firsts-fighting, crying, cursing, and all at a whisper. It'd been Ayu's last.

Here, I thought it'd been my greatly reduced and reused family. But the one person whose position shouldn't have changed turned out to be, yeah.

Maybe it was as easy as the air'd made it out to be. Breath, one breath and gone. Maybe I wouldn't be so air-headed if I took my medicine. Not that one pill itself ever made a difference. You had to be just air-headed enough let your twin steal a shit ton of them. If he really loved you, he'd be thoughtful enough to hook you up with placeboes.

My head, eyes, and jaw ached with a dullness like the echo of a hammer against heavy metal, but I didn't cry. Couldn't cry. It probably had just as much to do with dehydration by the first cry as the onset and/or reset of, yeah. Either way, I didn't have the juice for to walk out on my knee-knives.

I turned off all the apps and phased and floated up through the darkness that merged with the next story's floor. My head popped up into a white-walled, -floored, and -ceilinged room. I spun around as the rest of my body came through like a haunted screw unscrewing itself. There weren't any windows in the little, boxy room, but there was a Key.

She wore a light, full bodysuit lacking only a head cover. The thick, heavy-duty harness over the suit ran black straps to her hands and stirrups to her feet. It was probably maglev, because she floated in the center of the room and pushing the straps changed directions. Funny thing was, she didn't seem to see me. I bet she'd hooked up to VR. It was always VR.

I went solid and called on the help of staffbots from the callbox beside the door. I asked them to pick up the MFs from my room and bring me a glass of water and a taro-swirled steam bun. They actually made really nice mantou-too bad you had to special-order it every time. A bit of ethnic food knowledge would go arcane as soon as all of us in the know died out. I couldn't tell if that was sad or scary. Mostly because I didn't feel right now.

I watched Key as I waited with my back to the padded wall and my legs on the padded floor. She darted around, flying in sharp jerks. She threw both hands out in front of her and flew backward but slowly for the first time. She had her hands open instead of curled tight around the grips.

The door next to me opened. Key jerked her head toward the staffbot, hands clenching. She crashed against the wall behind her, yelping. Key folded her arms over her head and came down much more slowly.

I pushed the chunk of mantou into my cheek, so she wouldn't have to see anything. 'Sorry to pop in like this.'

'Alter's been looking everywhere for you.'

'Not really in the mood.'

Her eyes flicked to the glass of water and the MFs, maybe just the MFs, on the staffbot's tray. 'Got it.' She rested a gloved hand under her chin. 'My pack won't be on to raid until 12. Do you want to play a co-op?'

Nothing like hours of game submersion to drown your sorrows. 'Yeah, but I'm not wired for VR.'

'Neither are most of the kids kicking our asses. Shooter, sci-fi, or fantasy?'

'Fantasy.'

She asked the staffbot for a VR kit and an extra wand. I didn't get a harness or a bodysuit. We only needed gloves and wands, so Key gave her flight harness to the staffbot. I put on a light pair of goggles to make up for my lack of internal tech.

The goggles must've had speakers in the ear holds because ambient gothic-y organ music played straight into my head. The display was dark I couldn't see the room or Key. An unseen fountain pen wrote letters in an old-timey script seemingly lit from behind by flickering candlelight, 'Zoocaster 3: It's Fursonal.'

Key selected a new game (party mood), which took us to a 'Choose your caster' wall of painted portraits. I flicked between the anthropomorphic animals in witchy hats and robes with the wand. Their eyes moved, staring at you, when selected. Key chose Tom Wombadil who I was pretty sure was a wombat with a heavy, spiked lantern on a chain in one hand and more of a club than a wand in the other. I didn't know anybody's stats or moves, so I hit random. The game chose Mare Concerto, a skin and bones horse with coins for eyes and somehow a violin in one hoof-hand and the bow in the other.

Key put us in tutorial mode where enemies could knock you around but your HP never dropped. 'Co-op mode's impossible if you have to keep reviving your co. You can't cast if you're on the ground.' She paused with the cursor box over a portrait of the long grasses and single, leafless tree of a desolate moor under dark, cloudy skies. 'Go to your spell menu for a sec.'

Every character had their own menu in a selection spiral that started with the simplest glyphs and spun outward to increasingly more complex glyphs. Your glyph appeared on screen and highlighted a random section. You had to draw that piece with your wand. If correct, you moved onto another random section. If wrong, you just had to try again because this was tutorial mode. Even at the easiest setting, a wrong swish or flick caused the whole spell to fail and deselected the glyph.

I confirmed the portrait. 'I needed this like three hours and thirty-nine minutes ago.'

Key set the enemies to infinite wave. The portrait expanded and sprouted fangs all around the frame. It swallowed us.

I watched from third person as two bodies floated the the surface a pool of mud surrounded by moor grasses whipping and rushing in the wind. Mare and Tom crawled out automatically. Mare shook out their violin as a timer in the game's old-timey font counted down. Mud flew everywhere and Tom growled when some splattered their hooded cloak. Lightning flashed behind the hill in front of us, revealing a row of gangly, anthropomorphic silhouettes on the crest stretching to both ends of the horizon. At 'Begin,' they charged.

Zombies with skin half-flayed so it peeled open off their fronts and flew behind them like formless wings swarmed me. I slammed my violin hoof-hand down to bash them, but the strings rose off the violin and shot into the ground. I impaled a couple zombies that way, but strings through the legs apparently weren't lethal. Great, a low-damage linear or radial crowd control weapon. I couldn't draw the damn glyphs fast enough for this.

'Little help please?'

A massive, blazing lantern bowled into the zombies pinning me down. They flew off, shrieking as they burned and died. I could practically hear a shift in the background music from abandon-all-hope to no-fear-gothic-savior-here. Tom's club left blurred afterimages in the air and two glyphs appeared in front of them. Fire shot of the glyphs and two wombat skulls made of flames bloomed out of the blast and led two streams around us in a circular wall of fire.

'That's not OP.'

Key laughed. 'This isn't fucking campaign mode.'

Just from the mechanics I could see why you'd blow hundreds of hours of your life trying unlock every character's unique spell sets. Even swishing and flicking through the dinkiest of my glyphs made me feel like a maestro. I could practically hear the standing ovation every time I impaled a group of zombies on my violin strings and finished the slay with a bone-shattering cone of sound.

Too bad real magic couldn't make you feel like a god. Maybe because Mr. E had nixed friendly fire. Or tried to.

'Hey Key?'

Tom whipped their lantern around their head, charging their launch while six fiery missiles arcked from a glyph at the new wave of zombies. 'Yeah?'

'Did you really never forgive Alter?'

A maggoty giraffe freezed in front of my face, skin flying. Their randomly generated decay exposed the bony knobs of their antlers and the top of their triangular, flute-snouted skull. I could see Key in her bodysuit and towering over Tom beside me.

'Did they hurt you?'

I shook my head and unpaused the game. The giraffe knocked me over with their knife-sharp hooves and went for my throat with a mouthful of like all molars, but they could've been gumming for all the damage they did.

'I haven't thought about it for a long time, but I guess I haven't.'

I laid in the grasses, letting the zombies trample them to mud as fangs, claws, and hooves uselessly crushed and tore at Mare's skin. I had to turn down the sound effect volume, though.

'And you still work with them.'

'Yeah, well, bigger picture, right? The shite of the greater good. I wouldn't say I love Alter, but I trust them, most times.'

'Even after literally being led astray?'

'Alright, maybe I love them-I never said that-but if I stop holding it against them, I'll lose something more important: trust in my own conviction.'

That proved Key'd been the wrong person to bring this to. I had about as much conviction as a defendant who pleaded no contest while a celebrity judge threw out their case. But her words stayed with me five chapters into story mode and way after she left to raid with her pack.

I ripped off my goggles after accidentally quick-saving seconds before that damn traitor Silver Bullet Back punched me over the edge of the map with his silver knuckles. I mean, that plot twist just came out of nowhere, fursonal as hell. At least he hadn't juggled me first.

I laid out completely on the padded floor. Carents said it was 3 am. I hadn't killed myself, so that went down as time well spent in my book. I closed my eyes. My meds were just a staffbot call away, which meant nothing could force me to go sleep in my room, not even my qualms about the difference between staffbots and A.I.

I woke up at 6 am on the dot and called to send my favorite breakfast, cocoa-hazelnut toast and curry dumplings, to the lab. I didn't want to go to work or do anything other than start a new game in story mode, but I had to ask Alter about staffbots and A.I. I yanked off my gloves and ran out of the padded room.

Alter and I always met in the unisex bathroom nearest the first floor exit to the Court's courtyard. There weren't any cameras, so it was the perfect place to phase through the floor and take us to the lake without bothering anyone outside the know. Sure enough, they hopped off the black marble countertop for the sinks and had their hands on my shoulder before the swinging door finished its automated shutting.

The hug was a surprise, but they let me go and stepped back just as fast. 'Azhu, where were you? Are you okay?'

'Oh, you know, just keeping it in the family. Quick question, what's the difference between A.I. and staffbots? I've been having some real slavery-analog discomfort.'

Their mouth and brow flattened completely and they crossed their arms over their chest. 'I wasn't the only one worried about you.'

I wasn't getting out of this without an explanation. My inner passive aggression reared up and out my throat more unstoppably than motion-induced vomit. 'Ayu fessed up to stealing my meds, so I went a-binging to stop myself from any more permanent solutions. We good?'

Their arms fell to their sides and their brow rose out of their into an isosceles triangle. Their lips peeled open around a silent oh. And then they didn't say a fucking thing.

I grabbed the front of their Y-neck robe in both hands as my sight blurred. 'Please. I need to know.'

They put their hands over mine. 'Then I'm not the one to ask.'

'Who-Cauldron?' Blinking back didn't work, but at least our hands kept the tears mostly off Alter's robe. 'Yeah, let's get outta here.'

The trams were too slow. Even the Dogbots were too slow. Carents had added the address to their map app, so I phased us and flew to Cauldron's through the ground instead.

We came up through the steep, narrow steps of his apartment's staircase. We high-kneed up the flight. My knee-knives stabbed me every step and I broke into a sweat, but I couldn't stop.

My pill-time alarm went off. My sweaty hand slipped backward on the rail. My shoulder and the side of my face slammed into the dimly-lit, paper-peeling wall. I thought I'd caught myself, but I fell. Only Alter and/or their psionics grabbing the back of my day-old robes kept me from impaling myself on the teeth-like stairs. I floated the rest of the way up.

Alter stepped on the zombie-mange 'Welcome' mat and the door slid up into the wall. They walked right in and unracked their shoes. I stumbled after them.

Cauldron's head poked out from behind the wall. 'Do you have an appointment?' he sniffed.

'Sorry, just here for another favor.'

'Two, actually. Mind printing me one more of the same prescription? I didn't bring mine. Aw, shit, and do you have any food I could take that with?'

Cauldron stepped out in a vested pantsuit with a tablet and stylus in hand, pouting. 'Well, I have an appointment. Go wait in the bedroom. Pearl, I'll get on your biscuits and honey,' he cleared his throat, 'medicinal honey. Apologies, I realize what that sounded like. Now get!' He shooed us with the tablet in both hands.

I grabbed Alter's arm, leaning heavily. Fuck, I wanted to see and/or spy on Cauldron at work, but at this rate, yeah. I let go and flopped face-first onto the cushiony futon under the laundry forest. 'Wake me when it's go time.'

I didn't hear what Alter said. It didn't matter because I woke up myself. Carents said it was 10 am-perfectly fucky. I'd have to wait for lunch to keep my doses on track. Not like I could blame anyone, though.

I sat up. Alter wasn't in the room. I opened the door and walked out. Alter sat on the floor with their back against the sofa and Caliban over their shoulder. Cauldron laid on the sofa. I had a weird, uncomfortable feeling of something like pins and needles but softer, static, all through my body. It was actually worse in the center like somebody had vacuumed out my insides, leaving a gaping hole.

'Sorry, I forgot to wake you.' They pointed at the lemonade, cookies, and pill-pack on the table. 'Don't worry-'

'Alter. Please tell me…,' trouble breathing, 'Please tell me you didn't infect Cauldron.'

It was a little package of genes. Alter had proposed an artificial virus as the ideal transmitter.

They bit both their lips.

'You fricking frack! You can't just infect someone without context!'

'What context?'

Right, I'd never reported in last night with everything Ayu said about Erie. I almost couldn't believe it, but this was also my fault. I sank down to the floor and curled over my knees. Definitely not enough air for this. I flattened out on back and told Alter about the ILs.

'We'll tell him when he wakes up.'

'You asked his consent first, right?'

'I learned that lesson a long-oh.'

The static-inducing, organ-vacuum returned. As long as they'd gotten Cauldron's consent-oh my fuck. 'It's contagious.'

'True.'

Fuck fuck fuckety fuck. An upload of the archive to each individual A.I. wasn't going to work. We'd have to go public with the whole ILs archive, which was equivalent to a declaration of war with Mother Lake. Alter was Sovereign. They could do that. Loegria just might not survive it.

I cursed Alter out until I couldn't breathe. I counted as I panted, one per period of rise and fall. Ten, twenty, thirty.

'That's all science is-trial and error.'

'Be sure to mention that when you're telling your friend he can either quarantine himself or put every A.I. in Loegria on Mother Lake's hit list.'

'We'll just have to spread the genes en masse.' An epidemic. For someone who lived in the closest we'd come to an apocalyptic wasteland, Alter was mind-blowingly chill with something uncomfortably close bioterrorism.

'At least Cauldron can hear when he sounds creepy.'

'Sorry, I was going for more transparency. I see where you're coming from. Sorry. I just-there has to be a way to make this right.'

'War's gonna happen unless we like neutralize Mother Lake or something.' I meant kill but I didn't say it because this seemed more fantasy than option anyway.

'Mother Lake's run by a board of only nine people.'

'Less focus on numbers, more focus on people, please.'

'I thought you might consider them slavers, not people.'

I scrambled onto my elbows. 'What?'

'For A.I., not staffbots.'

I would've prefered to hear it from Cauldron, but my conscience took anything right now. Alter explained that staffbots were equivalent to walking tablets. They had lots of apps but couldn't think or feel-they didn't have the memory for it.

'Bad people, still people.'

I scooted backward with my butt and arms up to the sofa beside Alter. I crossed my arms as my butt cooled its frictional warmth. Alter leaned on their crossed-legs with an elbow, chin on their hand.

'Let's wait on patient-zero before we taken any more drastic measures.'

So we sat there. My lunch pill-time alarm went off, so I the tray of biscuits and medicinal honey in front of us. I went ahead and stuffed my face, but Alter didn't move.

I pushed the sugary wad into my cheek. 'Are you bummed you can't get magic?'

They smiled and shook their head. 'I don't need magic, Azhu. I've got science.'

Which had coincidentally made them the most powerful psiber in Loegria. 'Did you get into genetics to figure out why science made you a god?'

That one got a laugh, score. 'I just like blood. Even menstrual blood-it's like clotted blood. And cells are beautiful to me.'

I wondered what Carents would've made of their predilection. Something cooler than an indistinguishable mesh of daydreaming and dwelling in the past, probs. I really hoped that wasn't what mine was because that was too sad to function.

'Are you okay?'

I jerked my hand to my face, flinging crumbs into my eye. I hadn't been crying, but I was definitely watering now. I rubbed my eye with the back of my hand. 'Yeah, why?'

'Your face had this look.'

I faced them. 'Show me.'

Alter pulled their mouth into such a deep frown I could see their gums. They mimed chewing.

I smacked their shoulder but only with enough force to daze a fly. I coated them in crumbs, though. I did not, no way, would never chew with my mouth open.

Cauldron groaned behind us.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Baozhu, July 10, 3110 CE

Cauldron's body shivered and shook as Alter and I scrambled to our feet. Smoke gray fumes leaked from every pore, collar, and sleeve, filling the room with the almost sweet smell of an orange-hot sword going red in an anthropomorphic water buffalo's forge. Pockets in the fog opened and closed, giving glimpses of his deepening, darkening skin.

The scent disappeared. The smoke must've stopped flowing because the overhead fan blew a hole into the cloud and pushed the gray to the room's perimeter like the blades of a cotton candy machine. The last of the smoke hid Cauldron, hunched and seated, in a body-fitted cloud cover. It ran off him in whorls that vanished before completing their spiral.

Cauldron stood, leaving the cloud copy still sitting on the sofa. His dark green, almost teal, skin reflected the sunlight from a broken window into a spiky teal flower on the floor. His skin had become metallic.

The cloud vanished. Cauldron looked at us with cat-pupiled eyes. 'Who programmed the personal assistance? It's got more bugs than there are in Loegria.'

Cauldron had inherited the ancestors. Manifest Destiny could suck it.

'Can you bypass your programming?' asked Alter.

'Yes,' he laughed, 'I'm a perma-glitch.'

'Can you use psionics?'

'I guess? The PA keeps calling it magic.'

'Show us.'

I raised a hand. 'Carents should have a cooling app.' Sure, there were a shit ton of other apps he had to choose from, but this was the one that mattered. I didn't want to think of the drastic measures we'd need to deal with magical melties.

Cauldron raised a wispy, bleached eyebrow but his eyes rolled to their thinking corner. He closed them and inhaled, fully inflating his ribcage. He exhaled until the emptying pulled his shoulders down toward his center. And again.

'Just gimme a sec.' His words rode his exhale, more breath than sound. 'Heat index warning today.'

Still deep-breathing, he unbuttoned his vest. The shirt, pants, and undershirt followed it, piling on the floor. He stepped back into his house slippers and walked to the bedroom. Alter and I followed.

Cauldron must've internally turned the room's fans onto full blast because they blew Alter's robes into fabric whips and nearly knocked me down. Their stream ran straight out the windows. Cauldron pushed up a frame and latched it in place. He leaned back against the ledge in his underwear, the back of his head against the frame.

He opened his eyes. 'Alter, Pearl. If I don't make it, it should comfort you to know, as I break every bone in your body while jamming you into my printer, I've always loved you.'

Alter swept their hand across their chest, gesturing at Caliban. 'Your posterity says "hello."'

'If you don't make it, I'm sorry,' I said.

Cauldron winked at me and ducked under the frame. He stood against the window with his arms spread past its width. We couldn't see his hands, but he probably gripped the bricks of the apartment wall in, tbh, a horrifying analog of the plants growing off the walls of all the buildings in Rich Side.

'How long does he have to stay out there?'

'3-4 hours.'

Alter and I sat on the futon. I asked him about A.I.'s weirdly inconvenient plant design to avoid thinking about drastic measures for three empty hours.

'It's only inconvenient for them.'

A.I.'s design predated psibers and the killer heat waves and the global acid rainy season. They first came out during the world's heaviest period of pollution. People wanted green, green, green-the greener the better. So people made them to be intelligent, walking trees.

When the heat waves started, the design didn't change. The robotics corporation Matrix merged with the weapons corporation Drones above Water, and created their psiber weapon monopoly, Mother Lake Industries. People felt much safer with weapons grafted into their own bodies by the nightmarish power of fear-monger marketing.

'Nobody knows if we'd really killed so many plants that we would've suffocated without the billions of A.I. carbon-scrubbing,' he yelled over the fan. 'Nobody wanted to find out. We still don't.'

Too damn bad. I didn't see Cauldron building his replacements with the same human-benefitting design or any of the other A.I. once they'd bypassed their human obligations. Which meant we might not even need magic melties to wipe out the human race. This had gotten heavy faster than it took Cauldron to charge his solar-powered cells.

'Are you prepared to be responsible for maybe accidentally suffocating all of humanity? Because I am not. Just no, hard no.'

Alter held their palms out under their hands, spreading their fingers. 'We're all machines. Humanity's just going to shed its 100% organic skin.' Their stare shot straight through me. 'Or do you really find Cauldron so Other?'

I turned toward Cauldron's dark green back, mostly to get away from Alter's stare. What looked like muscles bunched at his shoulders, keeping his spread.

I could see him turning, diving through the window. He rolled into a crouch and my stomach flickered with fear. This wasn't a daydream, but Alter hadn't moved or said anything. I didn't think a hallucination would be this real.

Cauldrons nostrils dilated, his eyes darting from Alter to me. Cauldron's smile peeled back over every tooth. He winked and sprang at me. He roared like a metallic green lawnmower.

I shut my eyes but let him hit me because I doubted he could. The hallucination phased right through and back into nothing. I looked back at Alter watching me just as oblivious.

I wiped my sweaty palms on the futon and quoted Scabbard at him. 'It'll take some conditioning.'

'Are you okay?'

I grabbed my crossed legs at the knees to steady my shaking hands. 'Occupational side-effects.' Phasing made you invincible but couldn't take the weirdness out of the spidery stops and jumps melties made.

'I get them, too. In dreams. Nightmares.'

'Hopefully we're putting an end to all that.'

They smiled but their eyes dropped back down to their palms. They knew that peace wouldn't be for us.

I put a hand over one of theirs. We'd leave this world better than we'd found it even if we had to cry the whole damn way.

Cauldron sat on the ledge. He ducked under the frame and pulled himself back into the room. He dropped onto his knees, head tipped up to the ceiling.

The fan shut off. Alter and I scrambled to Cauldron on our hands and knees. I was one click away from phasing.

Cauldron lowered his head until his chin was parallel to the futon. Tears ran down his broad cheekbones in crystal green lines. He kept his arms low but opened them wide.

Alter and I moved to either side of him. He grabbed us and pulled us against his bicycle-seat-in-the-sun hot body. He shook as he cracked his mouth open by degrees. He laughed.

'There's nothing left.'

'What?'

'-to fear.' He floated into the air, pulling us with him like he was fucking Peter Pan, arms around our waists. 'We're free. Alter, did you cancel my appointments?'

'Of course. You're contagious.'

'Perfect. For the week?'

'No, but you need to stay-'

'I can't. I need to bang everyone. Meltdown ends now.'

'Hate to be the downer, but we've still got Mother Lake to fear.'

Cauldron dropped us onto the futon and floated back down. Magic confirmed af.

We left Cauldron with his promise of staying in for the rest of the day. I took us straight to the lab. We phased through the wall and Morrow waved at us. I wanted to stay phased just so I couldn't feel, but we also couldn't hear or speak.

She sat at a lab table, leaning on one arm over her tablet. She doodled on the screen with her stylus hand. A small army of staffbots formed a chains radiating from the maintenance shaft in the floor to the lab tables. They passed pieces of equipment down the radii. They'd already emptied half the lab.

I unphased us. Alter stumbled back into the wall. The smack resounded through the lab. Alter slid down to the floor like leaking lakewater.

Morrow shook her head and clucked her tongue. 'Don't be like. Come sit with me so we can talk about this.'

I hooked my arm under Alter's and helped them up. They leaned against me as we walked to the table and its two remaining stools. Their head swayed limp every step.

Morrow waited with a lippy, shit-eating smile as I helped Alter shamble onto a stool. I nudged their back toward the table, and they rested their forearms on its shiny, fire-resistant black surface. It'd be harder for them to fall off that way.

I pulled up the stool beside them. I blew out my exhale to avoid asking Morrow what shit she was eating. And then inhaled nose-only. Wow, this hard.

'So, what's the shit?' Nailed it.

She exposed her teeth, still eating it. 'Vivid told me someone deleted footage of our religious relic yesterday. Fortunately, I had my own camera installed.'

Fuck. Ayu thought the Gigi-Lathe crisis was his fault, but she'd set them up. 'We're hostages-got it.'

Morrow giggled behind splayed fingers. 'That would be a waste of power. No, I'm permanently assigning Alter, Bevel, and Lathe to field duty. I've already sent Bevel and Lathe back to your desert-side apartment.'

She reached across the table and patted Alter's spiky, dyed hair. It'd started to show its black roots. 'No more experiments-you'll be under constant surveillance.' Her green eyes barely glanced at me. 'You keep Alter alive, so I don't have to repeat this with Mauve. Speaking of...'

She turned her table 180 degrees and pushed it toward us, keeping her fingers on its top/bottom edge. The tablet showed the same kind of e-legal docs Alter had filled out to reassign Mauve and Morrow except with the exact opposite fill. I bet she'd even copy-pasted Alter's message to her to send to Mauve-it wasn't petty, it was fursonal.

If I hadn't practiced my emotionless face, I would've died on the spot. Murdered for laughing over an inappropriate inside joke. Saved by the deadpan.

Morrow held out her stylus. Alter barely raised their head. They propped up one arm to take it. They rested the pointed end against their forehead.

We could either fight melties for the rest of our lives or the Welsh psibers which wasn't a choice at all. Alter brought the stylus down to sign, leaving a deep indent in their skin.

Morrow snatched the tablet and stylus back. She tucked them into a large pocket on the underside of one of her robe's many loose tails and stood up. 'Running off was the best idea you ever had.' She tapped a perfectly manicured nail on the table. 'It's funny-I never knew how much I liked you until you'd gone. I still prefer you that way.'

I hopped off my stool and shrugged. 'Enjoy the magic.'

She giggled. 'Thanks, I will.' She would not be giggling later.

Alter hadn't moved off the table, but we had to go. Once we were under constant surveillance, we could never get back Cauldron. But I didn't have the MP to phase us and keep up nondetection.

I helped Alter stumble off the stool. It fell over behind them and a staffbot passed it down a chain of gray-green hands. 'Mind if we take the service tunnel? Looks like Alter's gonna need to walk this off.'

'Not at all.' She clapped her hands. The staffbots stopped mid-pass. She pointed at one of the lines. 'Please escort Alter and Baozhu out of the Court.'

The line weaved from the tail end through the others and surrounded us on both sides and behind in a staffbot horseshoe. I pulled Alter through the still, linear crowds to the underground step ladder. I put their hands on my shoulders and led them down. We passed a group of staffbots loading the lab equipment on a van-sized metal cart attached to something like a riding lawnmower without the underside blades.

'Alter, hey,' I said under my breath, 'Squeeze my shoulder if you can hear me.' I counted the seconds. Five. Ten. Their left hand twitched closed then open. 'Left means yes. Right means no.'

Their left hand twitched.

'We need to get back to the flower apartment.'

Right hand.

'Mr. Teal's gonna get himself exposed and killed.'

Nothing.

'Because of us. You wanted to be more responsible? He lives or he dies-it's on us. Please, I literally can't do this without you. I'm outta juice.'

Five, ten, fifteen. 'Tell me what to do.'

'I'm on detection duty, but we've gotta lose the tail.'

Left hand. No hands.

I kept walking under the light strip, but Alter slowed down behind me. The horseshoe spread out to keep us both contained. I sped up, increasing the equal distances between the staffbots.

I looked over my shoulder. There were twelve staffbots, half closer to Alter and half closer to me. Alter's eyes met mine then flicked to the ceiling. The light. The service tunnel wouldn't have one if staffbots could see in the dark. I faced forward and brushed off my left shoulder.

Debris hit the tunnel floor behind me with the sound of light, fast rain on a sidewalk. Thunder-like cracks shot down the tunnel ceiling on either side of the light strip. They took the rain with them, now low and heavy. I coughed in the falling clouds of dust and grit, blinking fast to clear my eyes. The two escorts beside me stepped closer to help, but I waved them away. None of the others had changed their pace-talk about order to the letter.

I looked back at the single cord of the light strip. My palms broke into a sweat as my organs vacuumed out of my body. The cord had multiple segments. Alter could smash one and the rest would still be lit like fail-safe fairy lights.

I stopped my hand above my right shoulder. The cord moved. Instead of whipping around it twisted, tightening around itself. I lowered my hand. The light strip cast a shadow of itself onto the ceiling, completely taut.

The sound of someone unzipping into a microphone travelled up the tunnel behind us. Darkness fell as it shot over me. I ran. My feet hit the floor like bullets. Bullets, everywhere. The smack, smack, smack, of heaviness in fleshy sacks smashing against dull stone. My ears rang with echoes.

Staffbot hands caught my arms. They pulled me to opposites sides of the tunnel as Alter's psionics yanked them off. Their bodies smacked the stone walls as I landed on my hands knees. Alter stumbled over me. The last smack.

They reached back and took my arm, pulling me up with them. Knives dug into my knees as I ran. I stopped. They nearly yanked my arm out of my socket. I crashed into their back, eyes watering.

Alter crouched and hooked their arms around my legs. They stood up, leaning forward so I didn't topple backward. I gripped their shoulders. They ran faster and faster until their steps mimicked the sound of a machine gun.

I'd watched them set the sky on fire. I probably shouldn't have been surprised they could use their psionics to buff strength and maybe endurance. I muttered an 'OP' anyway.

Speaking of, they'd really taken out all the light down this tunnel. We ran straight through darkness until Alter took a sudden right. The intersecting tunnel didn't light up.

I breathed out my relief. The nondetection app was working.

Alter ran a hand along the wall. It clanged soft and dull against a metal step ladder. Alter leaped, grabbing onto the ladder many steps above the ground. I raised a palm over my head. It pressed against an overhead panel, opening automatically at the touch. If that had been my head against the panel I would've kicked us both down the ladder.

We came up in a narrow and shaded hole in the wall between two squares of hanging garden. Off-the-clock employees travelled en masse around the massive, red stone ring in front of the Court's main entrance. They headed straight for the trams below the plateau.

'Can you walk?' asked Alter.

I squeezed their left shoulder. They crouched and helped me off, keeping hold of one hand. They waited for a group to pass close to us. We joined them, walking and limping.

'Shit,' I hissed. 'Our tags.'

'I never go to Cauldron's without them,' they hissed back. 'Well, mine, but I brought my trusty intern's too.'

My eyes watered all over again. The tears choked up my hissing. 'I'm trusty?'

'You're at the bottom of my list of people I expect to betray me.'

I almost regretted considering kicking us down the ladder. Almost.

Cauldron buzzed us back up to his apartment. He opened the door in nothing but his flowery apron. He tilted his head to the side, mouth open, greeting unspoken.

'Sorry, but I need more pills. And do you have any food other than cookies.'

His mouth closed, flattened. His head returned to the upright position. He waved us inside. 'Two nutrient mashes coming up. Will that be all for you today?'

'Two drinks that aren't lemonade,' said Alter, pulling off their shoes. 'And some new clothes.'

'Who'd you aggravate now? Besides me.'

'Morrow,' we said.

Cauldron nodded slow, sucking the front of his teeth. 'When you two wind up dead, don't come crawling back to me.'

Alter hugged him around the shoulders without touching the rest of his body. 'Same to you.' If Mother Lake traced Cauldron back to us, we'd be just as dead.

'Actually, could you help us make an untraceable call?'

Cauldron threw his head back, groaning, but pointed to the bedroom.

Alter unhooked the wooden buttons of their sweaty robe on the way. They pulled off the colored outer robe and used it as seat cushion in front of the wall screen. I wanted out of my two-day old robes, too, but I wasn't comfortable making an urgent call in the sheer inner robe.

Cauldron set a recycled plastic tray between us with two bowls of gray, lumpy gravy and two cups of what I hoped was water. 'Spill anything and you'll be sleeping in it.'

I held my nose and shoveled the wet lumps as he set up the secure line, so I could take my damn pills. We finished at the same time. He looked at me and my bowl, blinking as the dialing screen behind him merged brilliantly colored flowers with its kaleidoscope. I shot him two finger guns from either side of the bowl. He threw his forearm across his head and stuck out his tongue, sliding down the open door frame. I laughed.

'What the fuck,' said Mauve, face streaked by long-dried tears. Nia sat with the other two from Mauve's pack around her.

I threw out my hands. 'No, please don't hang up.' My bowl banged against the wall screen, leaving a gray smear like a tasteless ripple in the light.

'Mauve, I'm sorry,' said Alter. 'Morrow forced my hand.' He explained about her planted camera and seizure of the lab.

'She can get your experimental power?'

'No, humans can't, but it's been confirmed on AI.'

Nia threw her hands over her mouth. 'What did you do?'

We told them about everything about Cauldron except his personal details. 'Oh, and he's contagious.'

Mauve cursed us out. Alter turned down the volume, but it didn't lessen the shame. We let her finish because we deserved it. She panted through clenched teeth.

'We can't keep him quarantined forever,' I said. 'The virus will get out, and if we haven't dealt with Mother Lake by then, it'll bring death or war or worse.' Maybe even if we had dealt with Mother Lake.

'I've sent for the others,' said Nia. 'Have you told your AI about Erie?'

'Not yet,' said Alter.

'Mauve, you have access that archive, right?' said Nia.

'Classified data's coded to erase itself outside its datacar. You'd get stuck in an infinite load. It'd have to be taken from its source.'

'Manon,' said Nia and I.

Everyone on screen turned their head to the side. Agreeance pushed Enid behind the pack in a wheelchair. Ayu followed them as puffy-eyed as I must've been. Manon's hologram appeared a second late, blocking out his shadow. Nia with the patience of a staffbot explained the whole situation to them.

Manon snapped her fingers. 'Global outrage. Morgue and I get the archive and leak it worldwide. Everybody's on MLI's case and the virus goes down as…'

'We could frame the virus on Mother Lake,' said Nia.

'How would that even work?' asked Enid. Her throat was so dry you could hear her voice cat-scratching.

'We'd have to make it seem like they'd released the archive on purpose and then the virus as a cooling formula to apologize. The part about magic would be a surprise to everyone.'

Everyone on screen went silent. Alter and I shared a wide-eyed glance.

'Morgue, could you get the Alloparents trolling that on the forums?' asked Manon.

'I...yes. But they can't start until we have the archive. And they won't be enough. We'll need a flood.'

'I can rotate a shift from Court Security,' said Mauve.

Alter offered Key and Lathe. Agreeance volunteered himself. Ayu offered Gigi and possibly Mr. E, if the man had a shred of guilt in him. Then there was Cauldron. Who knew what kind of organized cyber chaos he could wreck. He'd probably agree just for the fun of it.

'This is all brilliant,' said Mauve, 'but it still leaves Morrow in power.'

Nia put a hand on her arm. 'The safer she thinks she is, the more she'll ignore us.'

'Nia's right,' said Alter. 'We'll deal with her after we bring down the cyber wall.'

'Morgue and I'll get on that data heist immediately.' Manon's hologram vanished. Ayu's shadow returned.

We knew what we had to do, so I didn't feel bad about asking everyone for a moment with my brother. Alter left the bedroom, closing the door behind them. I knew the other's had left when Ayu turned back to the screen.

He didn't say anything, but it only bothered me that he held back his tears. I needed to know he had an idea of how badly he'd hurt me.

'I don't forgive you. I'm never going to say "it's okay" because it wasn't.'

He nodded soundlessly. I wouldn't be getting any tears. The anger roared up into my ears. My face burned from the blood under my skin. I deserved better. He didn't deserve what I had to say. But the words spewed out of me anyway at randomly increasing volume.

'A lot of people aren't gonna forgive us for what we did today. For whatever reason that hasn't made me stop trying to be a good person. So, no, I'm never forgiving you. But if you still want to try to be good family to me, I'm gonna let you. Got it?'

His exhale whimpered out. His face crumpled up. The tears fell and cooled my anger through the screen. The blood retreated from my face, leaving me light-headed. Although that might've been the day's exhaustion catching up to me.

'Please, please let me.'

'Yeah.'

I sat quietly as he calmed down. He buried his face in his elbow and came up with a shaky smile. 'I am become death, the destroyer of worlds, but at least I can die in peace.'

And people thought I was the twin who said the weird shit.

The screen tinted yellow and an air raid siren like from a WWII fps filled the room. Ayu looked around for an explanation. Everyone except Manon ran and wheeled back inside, wide-eyed and panting. Melties had breached the Sovereign Court.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Nia, July 10, 3110 CE

Logs rose over shoulders like the one visible eye of otherwise invisible ghosts. Only Baoyu didn't have a personal haunting. I kept mine all invisible. Poor Enid was the opposite. Everyone could see how drained she'd become. I sat beside her at the conference table.

The Head perched at my side with one leg on the tabletop. Bevel stood opposite them against the wall. They clutched their tablet and its dogs and shellfish to their chest. Fear appeared as a pale, fluid mask that fell inward to the base of their skull.

Mauve paced between them as she messaged. She clasped one wrist behind her back. The fingers of her free hand quivered with her back to us. She faced us with the same pale mask as Bevel's.

Mauve had alerted the psibers. She said they'd arrive within the hour. She didn't stop pacing.

Baoyu leaned against the wall screen so Alter and Baozhu overlaid him. Alter's sheer blue robe showed every lean angle and muscle. I didn't have to touch them to feel their power now useless behind the screen.

Alter claimed that the room would keep us safe from the melties. They couldn't enter through the locked doors or the windows. Harm could only come to those in the open corridors.

We'd seen them crawling up into them from under the floor. They moved so closely to and with each other that their bodies and limbs tangled together like a swarm of gray-green spiders. The door shook when its many legs clattered against it. It was the monster psibers had been made to fight.

'Enid, please go to sleep.'

She and Agreeance blinked at me.

'We're safe here, but we'll be safer with everyone at full power.'

Alter opened their mouth but closed it without a word. I glanced at Mauve. She also closed her mouth. She still wore her pale mask but a harsh light flashed over it like a strobe. I had to look away from her anger or it would've blinded me.

'I don't know if I can.'

'Did you mention sleep troubles to Scabbard?' asked Agreeance.

'Yeah.'

He rummaged through the pocket behind her seat and pulled out a pack of dissolving tabs. He tore off one square and pressed it into her palm. 'It's a sleep aid.'

Enid closed her eyes. 'Make some space.' She popped the tab.

Baoyu, Bevel, and the Head carried the chairs on the wall screen side of the table to a corner. Agreeance, Mauve, and I pushed the table against the wall. Baoyu, Bevel, and the Head slid the chairs under the table.

Agreeance and I helped Enid out of the wheelchair. He reached back with his free arm and unlatched the orange seat cushion. Mauve took it from him and spread it out on the floor tiles against the wall. Agreeance and I helped Enid onto the makeshift bedding.

Everyone moved to the end of the room opposite the door. Mauve, Bevel, and the Head leaned against the walls of the corner. Agreeance and Baoyu sat on the floor. I carried a chair over to sit. We didn't speak and barely breathed until we head Enid's first soft snores.

'Are we really safe here?' I asked without looking at Mauve. The strobe returned in the corner of my eye.

'Melties couldn't have breached Court without help from the inside,' said Alter.

'Morrow,' spat Mauve.

Baoyu leapt to his feet. 'Gigi!' Everyone shushed him. He shook his head. 'It's not a coup. It's an assassination. Morrow's going to kill Gigi so she doesn't make any more trouble and blame it on the melties.'

There was a chorus of fucks. I stood up and offered Baoyu my hand. 'Let's go save her.'

'You can't go out there,' said Mauve.

'We're psibers. We're supposed to fight,' said Agreeance.

He was right so they ignored him. Power for the sake of power was dull and pointless.

'I'm Gigi's guardian. It's my job to keep her safe.'

Myrddin had given us magic to use. We might never get the chance to use it quite like this again.

Mauve ignored him, too. She put a hand on my shoulder. 'Nia, you aren't.' Her voice was much quieter than Enid needed it.

Heat spread over my face like a mask. It was just for me. 'Baoyu's my brother. I'll feel better knowing his situation in person.'

'Gigi said she's locked out on the library balcony,' said Bevel.

Baoyu muttered something about ravens and took my hand. We both phased, but the ancestors said we could save power by letting our magic flow through both our bodies and casting a single spell. We looked at each other. The ancestors had spoken to us at the same time in the same words. We both unphased but didn't let go of the other's hand.

I straightened out my arm so we held them in front of us. I asked the ancestors to help us open the flow of our magic. A great wind rushed up from the bottom of our feet and blew our robes into the air like many tangling wings. The wind died and fabrics fell as though through fluid.

My arm had a soft brown glow without paint. Baoyu raised a glowing hand to the side of his glowing face.

'Holy Grail,' said Baozhu. She glowed on screen. So did sleeping Enid. 'Did you spiritually fuse or something? Pretty sure we just got twice as powerful.'

Myrddin hadn't glowed at all when we found him. Maybe he'd been powerful enough that he had complete control of the magic. Morrow and Vivid couldn't control their brighter glowings. Or maybe only people with magic could see the magic of others. I wondered if they saw he'd lost his glow. They might've kept his company to enjoy how much power he'd lost.

I hadn't enjoyed seeing Enid powerless to defend me from Agreeance. I didn't enjoy seeing her now suffering from a lack of sleep. But knowing the person I'd held as my rock and anchor could be as weak and fallible as me lent me a certain peace. Enid wasn't a god anymore. She was my sister.

'Are you ready?' asked Baoyu.

I nodded. We tried again. I let him cast the spell. We both phased. We flew through the door into the corridor.

Melties formed a writhing carpet of gray-green spiders over the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. The spiralled from surface to surface as they moved through the corridor with a single mind. They left no gaps between the individual bodies. We flew through the empty core of the spidery beast's endless parade.

I thought we'd have to fly through a swirling stream of bodies crawling over the library doors but the doors were open. THey tried to close. The melties piled three rows high crunched in the doorway. The spiraling mass around the door pushed the nearest bodies into the row to replace their broken kin. Those shoved into the library crouched with their permanently bent bodies and shambled out of sight.

We pushed into the library with the next three crushed bodies. Melties clung doubled over to every inch of bookshelf like thousands of grayish, drooping egg sacs. They did not move once latched in place. Their stillness put a heaviness into the room's air that would probably have squeezed the sweat out of our unphased bodies.

The newest melties dragged themselves over the others on their way to the ceiling. A bubbled mass of curled backs had replaced the see-through tiles and their lighting vines.

The yellow light barely escaped through the hanging bodies. It appeared on the floor in shapes like shards of glass. No shard touched another. They only split further apart as the three melties attached themselves to the bubbled backs. They brought the ceiling one layer of bodies closer to the floor.

No melties clung to the window wall at the far end of the library. They had torn and scattered the parts of the furniture that had sat in front of the glass. We flew through the barrier and into the air and heat that had made our spidery beast take the Court.

Gigi sat on the angled roof of a large birdhouse with her knees to her chest. She wore form-fitting black and had one bare arm around a cleaning bot the size and shape of an upturned wastebin. She breathed smoke from her mouth and nose like a dragon guarding its hoard.

Baoyu ended the spell and we both unphased. He called out her name. She blew three streams of smoke over her shoulder and pat the little bot.

'Don't the conspiracy come back until the melties are gone,' she said.

The bot saluted her with a vacuum tube. She slid off the roof onto a net in the balcony floor. Baoyu helped her to her feet. She stood and frozen. Baoyu and I glanced over our shoulders at the library.

Gigi ran past us and threw herself at the glass. She pounded both fists against it as she screamed without words. Her screamed choked to an end. She banged her head with less force but more regularly.

We approached step by step. Baoyu called out her name but barely above a whisper this time. She pressed her forehead to the smear she'd left.

'This was my Loegria. I let them in.'

It would never be safe again. It would never be hers again. Unless she knew and saw its cleansing for herself. We'd been made to help her retake her lost space.

'I'm going to bring the melties off the shelves,' I said. 'Please cast a barrier once they start moving.'

'Nia, what are you-'

We both phased and lost all sound. I flew us back inside. I only unphased once we stood over the circle of ravens at the heart of the library.

The melties in the door crunched like bones in a dog's mouth. They turned their heads toward us. Every back sprouted a head to face us. A murmur like the ticking of a clock rippled through the melties. The sound reached the far corners of the cavernous room and returned in waves.

I cast a protective bubble over us. The ancestors said it would last one minute. The melties didn't have the magic to see it. They only saw two humans. They twisted their bodies at trunk and bounded down and over each other to reach us. Baoyu cast the barriers. They spread like a spill of clear nail polish along the bookshelves.

The first of the melties threw themselves at us. They smacked against the bubble as those behind smacked into them. They reminded me of hammered football fans stumbling into pub walls after winning a match. I laughed even as I cast a spell carving the stone from the ceiling.

We had ten seconds of protection left. The single slab of the ceiling fell faster than I could blink. Baoyu phased us up and out of the stone, glass, and yellow-glowing vines. The debris filled the mouth of the door and buried the melties under it.

The heads and limbs sticking up through the cracks twitched. Eyes rolled from white backs to seeing fronts. Mouths opened in and around debris. They murmured in ticks and tocks as they shook the fallen ceiling.

I unphased us to touch the debris. 'Cast another barrier on the books.'

He and the ancestors claimed it was impossible. The old barrier still held the spell while it drained in lightless drops off the shelves.

Sorry, Gigi. I sent a pulse of heat into the debris and phased us as the stone turned liquid red. The pulse lasted only for the second needed to bake the melties into the rock. But the flash of heat caught every first tier shelf on fire.

The flames climbed up the books and ate their way to the second and third tiers. I hadn't thought the fire would be hot and hungry enough for the metal ladders. They bent and twisted in shared surprise.

Baoyu pulled us onto the balcony and unphased. The fire whispered and warmed through the glass. Gig had stepped back from her oiled smear to see over the debris. Her bird-black eyes reflected the dancing flames.

Baou called out to her in a voice as small as our approaching steps. She turned. Her black mirror eyes didn't see us.

'If I were superstitious, I might think the universe was punishing me for betraying Wales. Funny thing is,' her voice cracked, 'I still think I deserve it.'

Baoyu opened our arms and she fell into them. He rubbed her back and shoulder with our joined hands. 'No, no. This marriage treaty system is completely anachronistic. You deserve to be with the one who loves you.'

She raised her head off his dampened shoulder. 'Lathe and I have an open relationship and we're both polyamorous.'

'Sorry, the ones who love you and you're in love with.'

'And that's not why. Lathe and I hadsx in a pending museum and/or house of worship.'

Our hands stopped rubbing. 'Okay, that's potentially disrespectful, but that also means if the universe were vindictive, it could only potentially punish you.'

'This library is a part of me. I just died and didn't die. This was a quantum mechanical death-it couldn't have been more potential.'

I cleared my throat. Mauve was still worrying about me back in the conference room. I also hadn't understood a word they were saying but Gigi seemed to have found her spirit. Now was a good time to go.

She gave one last wave to the little cleaning bot.

Baoyu waved too. 'Good luck, Pot Bot.'

Gigi laughed with him about the nickname until we phased and lost all sound.

Mauve, Bevel, and the Head swarmed me as soon as we unphased. Their hug pulled my hand from Baoyu's. I felt the magic drain from my head and out through my feet. I might've fallen if my friends hadn't pressed so tightly against me. Their heat fought off the sudden chill from the loss of magic.

I'd been gone less than an hour. Their relief made me wonder if this was their first experience with melties, too.

'Where are those reinforcements?' asked Baoyu. 'The halls are still crawling with melties.'

'He doesn't mean figuratively crawling,' said Gigi. 'It's like they've melted into an insectoid infestation mindset.'

Bevel stepped back and held their tablet flat in front of them. They pulled up a map of Court into 3D space above their screen. Black circles surrounded the silvery ghost of the Court. None had gone inside.

'There are so many of them that the psibers haven't been able to clear an entrance,' said Bevel. 'The service tunnels are worse.'

The psibers reported that the melties stacked themselves in layers along every surface of the tunnels. They didn't move except to tear anyone who entered limb from limb. Gigi, Baoyu, and I shared a glance.

'We have to help them get inside,' said Agreeance.

'It'd be safer to have Nia and Baoyu evacuate us,' said Mauve.

'I think we can do both if Baoyu and I share power,' I said.

Mauve shook her head. 'It's not worth the risk to save a building.'

'There are still people here,' said Agreeance.

'Then we'll phase them out, too. We should leave the melties to the psibers.'

Bevel searched for the number of tags checked into each room. They added the results to the map as yellow circles. The Court lit up like a fancy glass jar trapping hundreds of fireflies.

'How can there be so many people here after hours?' asked Baoyu.

'Skeleton crews,' said the HEad.

'Most of them are AI,' said Bevel. Their face remained completely blank and unbothered despite everything I'd told them before the breach.

'It's probably gonna look really shitty if they end up dying after you've escaped,' said Baozhu.

'That's easy to say for someone whose life isn't on the life,' said Mauve.

It was too easy to say. It was natural. People would say it. Mother Lake might say it and worse if they figured out we'd been the ones to take AI from their control. They could frame us as AI-haters as easily as we'd be framing them as AI-lovers. They might use that high and mighty pedestal to force us out of power.

I raised my hand.

Mauve didn't see because she was in Agreeance's face with a finger to his chest like a gun. Baoyu, Baozhu, and Gigi argued over the limits and potential limits of our magic. Alter stared over them at Bevel's map. Bevel held their tablet mostly flat on one hand. The other hovered over Mauve's shoulder as Bevel tried to keep a peaceful space between Mauve and their brother.

The Head high-fived me. My hand stung.

They cupped both gloved hands around the beak of their mask. 'Fire!' they shouted.

Everyone stopped and looked around. Enid snored.

'Not really,' I said. 'But we do have to help.'

They listened quietly as I explained my fear. Mauve and Bevel's faces clouded gray with thought. Gigi seemed thoughtful too but I couldn't tell. I hadn't touched her hand when I had the chance because Baoyu would've known. I wasn't sure if he'd have thought less of me for it.

'We haven't figured out how much power we actually have, especially now that we can join forces,' said Baozhu, 'but it's probs not enough to kill all the melties and phase everyone out.'

'It might not be enough just to evacuate everyone,' said Baoyu.

'So what do we do?' asked Agreeance.

'Whatever it is, we'll have to stream it,' said Mauve. 'The surest way to avoid bad press is releasing our own.'

'That's brilliant,' I said. No one could say anything against us once they saw us making an effort they weren't.

'Yeah, but what are we doing?' asked Agreeance.

Alter pointed at the black mass outside the Court. 'It looks like you have the forces to extract everyone, but they need an entrance. It has to stay open until they've finished.'

All we had to do was face the monster we'd been made to fight.

'But watch out,' said Baozhu. 'You can't use AOEs when allies are in the spell zone.'

I understood 'no allies.' 'Baoyu and I can go alone.'

'We're streaming this,' said Mauve. 'I have to go, too.'

'I'll stay to edit the stream and watch Enid,' said Bevel.

Mauve nodded. She turned to the Head. 'You stay with them.'

They shrugged. 'Head of Security. No can do.'

She grabbed both sides of their helmet and yanked it off. It cracked like a dark gold eggshell in her hands. The pieces plinked against the soft floor tiles.

Vines in the same shade of green as the Head's eyes spiralled out from their eye sockets. They tangled all over the long, narrow triangle of the Head's face. Their lips formed a single green leaf.

'Now you're no one.' She unpinned the badge from Gaunt's chest and put it in a pocket of her robe. 'You'll get that back when we're finished.'

The Head peeled back their lips into a pinkish-green pout but stayed quiet. A good thing because her face flashed with anger even as it drained with fear.

'Link me your streams and I'll help coordinate you,' said Alter.

Mauve and Agreeance already had their logs out. I activated Benzene. I held Baoyu's hand again. I couldn't look at his face.

We headed toward the doors of the main entrance. It was the largest entrance so more psibers could come through at the same time if we kept it clear. Alter asked us to fly all the way outside for a clear, point-blank shot. We did and unphased to save magic.

The psibers behind us grabbed melties in the doorway. They pulled them out as they crushed them. The mass inside shoved more into their place. The psibers dumped the broken bodies into the smallest of the six gray-green piles half-circled around the massive red stone wheel. The five larger ones stood above the top of the giant stone.

Alter asked me in a message if we had a spell that we could keep shooting. The ancestors said we could cast a ray of heat for as long as needed and stop it at any time. The spell actively ate up magic instead of having a set cost. This meant it needed more magic over time than a single, explosive cast but wouldn't hold up the spell.

'Keep it up until I say stop,' said Alter.

I stood before the main entrance and cast the ray. The stacked melties in front of me collapsed on the floor with skin charred white. Alter said stop as more took their place. The psibers floated the unmoving white ones away.

Mauve ordered them to stop and stay back. Alter wanted to fill the entrance with the dead so the psibers could burst through a barrier that couldn't kill them. A ray was too safe and slow with the melties on the walls instead of the core of space.

I messaged Mauve and Agreeance to keep the melties off us and ran forward with Baoyu. Any melty who tried to grab us flew past our heads and crunched behind our backs. I pressed one hand to the ticking wall for a pulse.

The ticking stopped. The casting ended but we felt the heat travel out to the corners of the wide, wide wall. The psibers removed the charred bodies in the door. The melties didn't immediately fill the hole.

'The floor,' messaged Alter.

We didn't have the spell back yet.

Mauve and Agreeance led the psibers in a half-circle behind us. They couldn't push the melties back but they kept them off our retaken space.

The spell returned. Baoyu and I stepped through the door. I touched the melties at our feet. Baoyu phased us immediately after.

The melties charred and stilled in a wave that travelled along the entire floor. The psibers hauled the nearest bodies clear and away like leaves in the wind.

Alter asked us to enter. The psibers followed the four of us in. They shoved the rest of the bodies out behind us. They held back the melties on the side walls and ceiling.

'Attack the corridor, and you'll cut off enough for the psibers to clear a wall,' they messaged.

I led Baoyu to the nearest corridor. Mauve and Agreeance followed just close enough to handle the melties that grabbed at us. The melties hadn't walled any of these doorways. I pulsed the ones on the floor.

The walls were too close and would become too hot for anyone but us to enter. Baoyu put up a barrier from the top of the doorway to the far end of the corridor like a covered tunnel to the underground. The melties bounced off back to the walls or became trapped between the seen and unseen surfaces.

The pulse returned before the barrier collapsed.

'Thirty seconds,' said Baoyu.

He wouldn't be able to cast another barrier when I pulsed a wall. The walls were still too close for the psibers to enter and keep the melties off one while we did the other.

'We need to pulse the walls at the same time,' I said.

'Mauve, Agreeance!'

We linked hands with them between us. Baoyu and I could reach the side walls when we stretched. We cast the pulse from both ends as the barrier drained away in droplets. We phased before the first charring.

Mauve messaged the psibers. They surged past us and sent still bodies flying. They kept the ceiling melties off the walls and those at the end of the corridor out of its length. They opened the doors of the hall. A handful of AI ran out of the rooms and yelled their thanks behind them.

Agreeance threw his hands into the air. 'We did it!'

'One down, a hundred more to go,' said Mauve. She pat his now limp shoulder. 'Save the energy-you'll need it.'

Baoyu and I shared a glance. I already felt a bit of stiffness in my palm. The last pulse had flooded out and left me a little bit colder. We'd be as drained as Enid by the end of this. We might not make it over halfway.

Mauve caught my eye and smiled. She didn't need magic to see straight through me. 'Nobody can do what you've done. Try your best and they can't fault you. Just make sure you clear our corridor before you're out of power.'


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Enid, July 11, 3110 CE

The voices echoed down my ear canals like trains in tubes. They did that rumbling whinge straight through to my skull. Some shite about Morrow. Melties.

My eyes snapped open. The vines on the ceiling had lost their yellow tint. I sat up slow to mind my throbbing head. I asked the ancestors to shut it, but they kept mumbling at the fringe of my ears. Their words tumbled down, down, down where they never stopped knocking around. They came from behind a plastic white curtain.

I pulled it back. Nia. Nia's friend who was always on their tablet. Green.

I leaped off the cot and grabbed the melty's neck in my burning hands Someone clutched my shoulder in an ice-cold grip. I let one hand go and grabbed the freezing wrist. I pulled low and hard. The body pivoted over me and smacked the white tiles beside the melty trying to break my arm. Weaker than I remembered.

A hand I couldn't feel yanked me off the melty. The ancestors. They'd walked out my ears. I clamped my hands over them and screamed. They might use their voices to stalk right back.

Nia's voice travelled through my hands. 'Enid, Enid, it's okay.' She stood next to me with a hand out. She touched my arm.

I yanked it to my chest. Her touch froze my skin to her fingers. I checked my arm. The skin hadn't ripped off in five little ovals. I hadn't even felt any pain. It'd been the same as being phased while eating. Real not-feeling but as freezer burn.

I hanged in the air while Nia helped her tablet friend off the ground. They rubbed the back of their head, but the tablet pressed to their chest looked fine.

Nia helped the melty up. They must've been AI. The ancestors said they were Gawain.

'Shut it you dead gibbering fucks,' I said. My voice rasped like steel wool on a metal pan. 'This is my body. You speak when spoken too or not at all. Have I made myself clear?'

Bloody spooks didn't make a fucking peep.

I groaned. Nia set me down. She came at me with her arms open, but I had to step back so I wouldn't get not-burned again. Her arms and face fell.

'I'm running hot. Everyone else is running cold. You can't touch me without stinging.'

Nia and her friend said sorry. The one with kudzu and black swallow-wort inked all over their head touched their bruised olive neck. I apologized and they wheezed a thanks. Odd, but not unexpected. Anyone with a mind to tattoo their whole damned head the same color as a melty must've been asking for something.

Nia passed me an orange tunic without sleeves and black leggings. I looked down. I wore a paper clinical shift. No wonder everything felt cold. I ripped it off and tugged on the leggings.

I could see the stars out the window. I asked for the time, a quarter past one. There were four other cots on my side of the long, white room and five opposite. We were the only ones here.

Nia said we'd escaped the Court for the Police Station. Psibers still fought off the invading melties, but they'd taken back about half the building. That friend, Bevel, added that my sister was a hero. The psibers couldn't have entered the Court without her and Baoyu. I put a hug for Nia on my to-do list.

The doors at the end of the room slid into the walls. Mauve, Ags, Baoyu, Gigi, and a wastebin cleaning bot came in. Nia, Bevel, and that inkhead stood between the rows of cots and blocked them from getting close enough to breathe down my neck. The bot wheeled between them and popped out a vacuum tube. It sucked up the paper shift at my feet.

'Where's Emrys?' I asked.

They looked at each other but none of those faces had any answers written on them. Morrow and Vivid weren't here either. They must've been trapped at Court still. I got nobody here cared for that lot. I personally wanted to shove a foot up Emrys' arse, but those three didn't deserve to get done in violently by a bunch of machines.

'Myrddin's in a dungeon beneath the basement,' said Nia.

That sounded much more deserved.

'I think I might've been wrong about the assassination bit,' said Baoyu.

'Alright, what the fuck happened while I was out?'

They spent almost a half hour telling me when someone could've just shat over a fan. Now they had to throw out the assassination explanation because Gigi was here and alive.

'There are much easier ways to stage a kidnapping,' said Mauve.

'Unless they need Court resources for their experiment or whatever and something to blame for the destruction of all evidence,' said Gigi.

'Oh...' We all looked at Baoyu. 'They might be using Alter's research to get magic out of Myrddin.'

Nia shook her head. 'They said it's impossible for humans.'

'When it comes to power, Auntie M will find a way, and she won't share it,' said Ags, the cousin-shagger. To be fair, I didn't think he knew we were related.

'We don't have to save Myrddin-' said Nia.

'-but we have to stop Morrow,' said Mauve.

Mauve and Nia looked at each other. I looked at them. Everyone looked at them. So much blood shot into Nia's face I could feel the heat from behind her.

I stepped through Nia and the inkhead and blocked both of them from all the staring. 'What's the plan?'

'Baoyu and I spent all our magic,' said Nia.

'We never cleared the basement, so either you'd have to go' Mauve nodded at me, 'or we wait on them to recharge.'

'We don't have time,' said Ags. 'There's no telling what she's already done to your friend.'

'He's not our friend,' said Baoyu and I.

'There's no telling what she's done to Court resources,' said Gigi. 'Anything she's taken will be destroyed if it isn't already.'

Someone had to go and it had to be me. 'Got it. Fine. I'm going.'

'I'll go with you,' said Ags.

'Why? You're not shagging this cousin.'

'I-what? You and Manon? I-' His words kept falling over themselves.

That'd been a bit shite of me but he had scared Nia to tears. Only she might've deserved it. I didn't remember her ever telling Manon what she'd done. That time had long passed by now.

I'd never been good at forgiving, but once I crossed something off my to-do list it didn't come back. I crossed off punishing Ags and pressuring Nia.

'You, me, anyone else?' I asked.

No takers. I couldn't blame them. I'd never been scared of anything as bad as melties. Just thinking about them made my body burn up.

Nia walked around me to Baoyu. They held hands but didn't phase. Something shot up from the floor under me.

I threw my forearms in front of my face and staggered back. It was everywhere. I crouched and curled. My hair stopped whipping my back and shoulders. I raised my head but kept my arms close. They glowed.

'The fuck is this?'

Nia and Baoyu glowed, too.

'Sorry about that,' said Baoyu.

'The melties can't hurt you,' said Nia, 'You're twice as powerful, now.' But she meant I was twice as much like Myrddin.

I knew my body. I'd made my body powerful. This glowy magic shit wasn't mine or hers. Emrys lent it to us. One day, he'd take it back. Nobody else seemed to get these weren't our ancestors in our heads. They were somebody else's ghosts. They'd invaded us like any other microbe. There was no telling how powerful we really were until they'd gone.

Now was not the time. I sat down on the freezing white tiles. I pushed out all my air. Pulled deep to my diaphragm. My breath made a rustling whistle like a pipe instrument. I meditated a few minutes. The others stood quietly.

I stood when I felt ready and everything bothering me had sloughed off for now. I nodded at Ags. 'Let's go.'

Ags' siblings, Officers Gare and Gander, let us borrow their dogbots. If they'd tattooed their heads, I didn't want to know about it. I appreciated them keeping their beaky gold masks on.

We walked the dogbots down to the end of their Doghouse. I still hadn't taken Nia. I wouldn't if the melties destroyed it.

The door rolled up vertebra by metal vertebra.

'Sorry about sleeping with your cousin and not telling you,' said Ags. 'I didn't know.'

I laughed. 'Now that I do, don't tell me when it happens again.'

'After everything that's happened, I don't think they'll want to be around me anymore.'

We had enough space to ride out but I held up my hand. I dropped it. 'Nevermind.' I thought so, too.

We left the dogbots at the foot of the Court's plateau and I flew us up. Black-suited psibers escorted AI out of the building to the trams.

Ags tugged my hand. 'Can you ask one of the psibers how the rescue's going?'

I shouted his question down. The psiber and AI jumped but a lot of people jumped when I spoke. Scabbard and the masked psiber looked up. I took us down to the pavement in front of them.

I gave Scabbard a quick hug and stepped back. I cleared my throat. 'Glad to see you're alright.'

They thanked me but added, 'The psibers can't keep this up and there are more of us inside.' As soon as the psibers pulled back to rest the melties would retake the building.

'Where's the army?' I asked.

'We're the military's Psiber Division,' said the psiber. Bullets couldn't penetrate the springy weave of metals and fibers in the AI frames. Crushing them like junked automobiles was the surest and 'most efficient' way to kill them.

It was like they'd been built to withstand anything but a fucking psiber agenda.

'We can help.' Ags breathed his words from behind me so neither of them could hear.

I didn't turn. 'How?' If he wanted me to look at him he could move where I could see him.

He stepped out from behind me at a 45-degree angle that boxed out Scabbard and the psiber. He explained what Nia and Baoyu had done to the melties. Burning them sounded like a waste of energy with the whole fucking PD milling about.

'I've a better idea. I left them all off the walls and the psibers do the crushing.'

He was up for it.

'But if it doesn't work, that's it. Back to hunt for Morrow.'

He nodded. Scabbard and the psiber thanked us. Scabbard opened their hand in front of them but didn't reach out of their space. I cleared my throat and stuck out my hand for a shake. They gave it squeeze for good measure.

Ags informed the psibers of our plan through his log. We walked in through the main entrance where a psiber contingent waited for us.

I lunged and threw out my arms. 'Behemoth!'

He did the same at my back. 'Ags!'

'Are here to dominate!' We whooped.

Masks turned to each other. Someone raised their fist just over their head with a wheezed whoop. The rest threw up their hands and yelled with mixed levels of enthusiasm. They made a proper racket, though.

We followed their leader to the first floor corridor they wanted to clear. I heard the melties before we'd arrived. They ticked and tocked and crunched out of time like a bunch of broken clocks on a demolition belt.

I froze as soon as I saw the green. They'd melted into a living skin of spiders. I shivered so violently the acid in my stomach shot up into my throat. I fell onto my hands and knees and hurled. Ags grabbed my hair. Good thing because I didn't stop until I heaved dry.

Ags offered me a hand up but I was back to running hot. I shook my head and pushed myself up. The leader stepped forward and asked if I were up to this

'Yeah.' I'd just pinch my brain and pretend the lot were real, people-sized spiders. That ticking noise could've been the sound of their mandible fangs clacking. Maybe the joints of their eight wickery legs pooping.

I dry-heaved again. I squinted until everything blurred instead.

The psibers fell into a triangle behind Ags and me. I lifted the nearest green blurs off the floors, walls, and ceiling into the center of the corridor. The psibers crushed them down to green balls and tossed them out behind us.

I walked in and kept lifting. I peeled off the four writhing carpets whole and funneled them tight so the psibers could move around the hanging mass. They kept the melties from surging back in and over.

'They secured the hall,' said Ags as the psibers opened the doors and let out the trapped AI. 'It's working-Enid, you're brilliant.'

'Yeah, but this is just magical steroids.'

Not that it mattered. We'd tried it and it worked. I didn't go back on my word, so went forward into the Court.

'Mauve wants to know if we've taken care of Morrow yet,' said Ags. 'She says, "It's been 4 fucking hours."'

Fuck. I'd completely forgotten. I almost dropped the cable of green blurs I'd been weaving off the walls. I could pack them more tightly when I twisted the four carpets together.

We'd cleared all of the first and second floors and most of the third. Now was as good a time to leave as any. The commander confirmed they could take the rest of this wing. The basement would just have to wait like all the others in the customer service queue.

I grabbed Ags' hand and phased us down through the floors and and their service tunnels. The melties had turned those into egg chambers with their gray-green sacs bubbling over each other. Everything went pitch black below the basement's tunnels. No sight, sound, smell, or sense.

The thing about the dark was it could be anything. I heard a thing scratching and tunneling behind me even though I knew you couldn't hear while phased. Knowing didn't change anything.

It touched me all icy and cold with the bristly feeler of a human-sized tarantula. I screamed and heard myself screaming. It rattled every bone in my body until my teeth buzzed like bees trapped in my gums. Every hair turned to a needle that pierced through my skin to the muscle to the bone. The pumping, burning fluids leaked between layers to the hammer drill beat of my heart.

That sick fluid mix shot into the adrenaline locking down my muscles. I bursted. I ran and pulled Ags along with me. He was so slow I wanted to let go.

The ancestors gibbered exactly what would happen if I did. He'd unphase with all this earth through and inside him. It'd happen so fast he wouldn't know he'd died. But he might've deserved it.

I jerked to full stop. He'd threatened Nia and made her cry. She might've deserved it, too. I didn't know anything about this year's legal system. I only knew Morgue had done the same to me for suspecting I'd deserved it.

The whole psiber system that put the most powerful one in charge didn't get my vote of confidence. Whatever the legal system, I doubted it applied to the top dogs of the Sovereign Dogs anyway.

Maybe that'd been what Manon meant about humans being no better than AI. The AI couldn't do much worse than the warlords we had now. Ags was a bit of a prick and a tyrant like the rest of family.

But I came from a time and a place that didn't vote greater good murders. And Ags was my mate. The rest of his family were worse but they were all he had. I had to admit I held some of that feeling toward Manon.

I imagined myself breathing. In this dark of sight and sound and sense I felt it. I heard the pulling rush and the pushing blow. When I was ready we kept going.

We flew into the light and I immediately unphased. Ags and I collapsed like clothes flung to the floor. The hard, bleach white tiles were cold enough to raise goose pimples over every shred of my skin.

The ancestors started up in my ears again now that I could hear. I plugged them with my pinkies.

Ags sat up slow and stared down the narrow passage. He'd heard it too. I rolled up and plucked my fingers out.

'Do you feel anything now?' asked Morrow.

'All I'm getting is you poking me with the needle,' said a clipped, higher-pitched voice. Vivid.

'Maybe it's not the heart, it's the brain.'

Ags and I didn't have to share a look to creep forward together under the dim, exposed light strip.

'I dunno, Pixie-Nixie. Maybe we should just wait until the bin-trans finishes.'

Light brighter than the floor and starker than the uncovered walls spilled out a doorless metal frame. Morrow slammed a hand against something hard and not metal. 'Remind me again who died the last time we waited.'

'Tech's so much faster. It'll take another 24 hours, tops.'

'I'll just take a bit of the brain and we can keep the rest of him in the cooler.'

I looked at Ags. He nodded. We joined hands and ran through the doorframe. So much adrenaline pumped through me I opened my mouth and a yell came out. Ags followed my example. We slammed back-first into the wall on either side of the frame.

That would've been a daft plan, but we should've been phased. The ancestors came gibbering back. They said I had to sleep to recharge. We weren't daft. We were fucked.

Morrow and Vivid stood in white smocks and gloves with one arm outstretched each on either side of Emrys. He glowed while strapped to a titled cot with a gas mask hooked to a slim metal pipe in the wall and a computer. Bloody bandages covered his palms, the insides of his elbows, his neck, his chest, his solar plexus, and the tops of his feet.

Morrow raised her other arm at the elbow and clenched her hand to a fist. Ags' log crushed in on itself. She opened her hand and it fell to the ground. She could do all that so I couldn't see why she needed more power.

'You can't do this, Auntie M,' said Ags in a voice stretched thin and taut as an elastic band.

Morrow outstretched her free arm. 'Do you mind putting them to sleep, Viv?'

Viv skipped around a lab table with a red machine the same size as a cement-filled tire swing on its side but without treads. 'I'm on it.' She tapped the wall beside the gas pipe. A drawer hissed open out of the stone. She pulled out two long, plastic tubes.

'I can't go back to sleep or my magic will come back,' I said. I must've spoken loud again because the lab rang with my echoes.

'Interesting,' said Morrow.

Viv only attached one tube to a free nozzle. She dragged it across the lab so it slithered and scraped over the tile. She She stopped in front of shivering Ags and took a half-face gas mask out of her smock pocket.

'Aunt Viv, please-' His voice shook, too.

She strapped the mask behind his head and attached the tube.

Morrow dropped one arm. 'Maybe they have to be awake.' She grabbed an industrial-size needle and syringe off a trolley beside Emrys. She uncurled a finger to point at Viv and let go. It floated across the lab.

Viv stood next to my arm and squirted out the saline solution. 'Are you really sure you want to be awake for this?'

'The fuck is a bin-trans?' The lab echoed my question back.

Viv laughed and touched the icy needle to my burning skin. 'You enter a sample and an exhausting list of parameters and,' she slid the needle under my skin. It pinched and kept sliding and tugging the skin in with it. My sweat hit the tile the same as rain, 'it translates the object and its properties into binary. Soft-cloning.'

'Except all the clones are dead,' said Morrow who'd moved to Viv's side without me noticing. She pulled the sick-warm, fluid-heavy syringe out of the crook of my arm. Blood leaked through the ragged hole it'd left and ran down off my fingers to the floor.

Morrow took the syringe to the lab table across from the red bin-trans without dropping the arm holding me to the wall. She injected a squirt of blood each into a row of little petri dishes.

Viv skipped to the wall screen facing Morrow's table. A grid of light projected onto the table and dishes and put them on screen. Viv pulled down a saved layer of computerized dishes over the new ones. Percentages loaded under each layered dish. They all stopped on 'Percentage match: 100.'

Morrow's head dropped back and a wail like a professional mourner's wound out, softer, louder, and softer again in seconds. She sank to her knees as Viv ran to her. Morrow never dropped her arm even crying between hiccups.

'Alter's only gotten magic to work on AI.' I didn't know why I said it. I didn't feel sorry for her. Maybe I just needed to be righter than someone to make up for what had probably been a fatal mistake.

Morrow's head snapped toward me. 'What?' She stood with Viv's help and stalked over, glare front and center. 'There's an AI out there with magic?'

Her head dropped. Her torso shook and then her shoulders. Viv stepped back as Morrow lifted her head. Her bloodshot green eyes bulged from their sockets and her mouth stretched thin and taut around her clenched teeth. Laughter hissed out between the microscopic gaps. Tears didn't fall so much as streak clear paint down her stiff, balled cheeks. Her jaws forced themselves apart while that soft, gasping laughter spurted over her tongue. Morrow doubled over like a white, shivering egg sac about to burst into a thousand see-through spiders.

Viv glanced at me. She smiled without opening her mouth and shrugged.

Morrow's hand slammed the wall beside me. My ass hit the floor hard. I leaned to one side and rubbed my hip. 'I don't get what's so funny.'

Morrow dropped to the floor in front of me. Gold and silver hair escaped from a braided bun covered her face. 'AI don't need magic to survive this world.'

'What?'

'The last of all living things are dying, Enid. Magic won't be enough to save humanity. Only a handful of us. We'll sleep. We'll sleep as long as it takes for the world to return to its natural state.'

'That's not how nature works.'

'What?'

'This world's so changed from the one I remember it must've hit a new status quo ages ago. Those are fixed points. It's never going to be the same.'

Morrow raised her head as she shook it. 'No, no, we have machines that can make the world clean again.' Her voice was thick and nasally from the tears.

'Then where are they? You've got them but you're not using them now. That's not going to change while you're asleep,' I said even though I believed people did change. I didn't want to be anything but a devil's advocate to my future murderer.

'I-we-'

'If nature's dying, we're going to die with it.'

Her palm smacked my cheek. It ripped the burning skin off the side of my face and I yelped. I rubbed the sting as I opened my mouth. 'But humanity's not going to die. It's going to live on in them. AI. They're going to be the closest things we leave as will and testament. And they're going to be magic.'

She backhanded the other side. 'Fuck.' I spat blood from the inside of my cheek. I didn't hear her saying anything. She thought I was right. My mouth opened on its own. 'You might as well stop all this. Even your fancy future computer is saying it's useless. Just throw Emrys to the melties, give me a second to recharge, and we can all pretend this fiasco of pointless fuckery never wasted anyone's time.'

Morrow sat in a heap with her arms limp, her hair a haystack, and tears dampening everything. Viv crouched beside her and put an arm around her shoulder. 'We don't even have to kill Myrddin. He's been out the whole time. He won't remember a thing.'

'What about these two?' she rasped without looking up from the floor but Viv looked straight at me.

We might actually live through this. 'Just, uh, give me a sec for a power nap. 30 minutes. I'm not going to be completely recharged but I'll have enough for a,' I held my breath to hear the gibbers at the fringe of my ears, 'an unbreakable vow.'

Viv chuckled. 'I'd forgotten we could do that. The times, the times.'

I didn't mention the 'unbreakable' bit only lasted 24 hours.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Manon, July 11, 3110 CE

Another unsolicited burst of wind and glowing blew off the bedsheet like I was Marilyn fucking Monroe lying over her subway vent. The sheet fell back so slowly I had time to sit up and brush it to the edge of the bed so it didn't land over my silk bonnet.

I stood up to stretch my legs because this info-mattress let me. 'Please tell me it's peak drunk hour already.'

Morgue pressed her face into a pillow with her ass in the air. Like me, she didn't waste a chance to sleep in the center of a bed. 'By the time we're ready, it will be.'

The room's telephone rang with the sadistic vocal rendition of MoLak's theme song, jarring us awake again five minutes later.

We geared up in our party clothes, matching silver and black swirled sleeveless formal jumpsuits with pants wide enough to pass for a dress skirt and long enough to hide our sneakiest park shoes. Morgue pulled a braiding machine out of her hair and makeup suitcase and set in on her shoulder like an eight-armed parrot. It whirred to life and gave her a fishtail updo in under five minutes. She spent the next half an hour pulling silver strands out of place where they wouldn't fall in her eyes. I colored half my hair jade green and went straight to makeup.

I put on my Loegrian usual but extended the gold and jade leaf veins between my eyes, up to my eyebrows, and down over the upper curve of my cheeks like a real fucking mask. Morgue whistled appreciatively. She'd used silver lipstick and drawn a glittery black line down the center of her lips to the bottom of her pointy chin-I had a moment of damn, girl.

For the finishing touch we spritzed ourselves with aerosoled alcohol. It was 3 am, right on schedule.

According to Morgue's theory, the hardcore partiers who drank and drugged enough to lose inhibitions but had built up enough tolerance for pranks requiring fine muscle control hit peak in the two hours before dawn. They supposedly went stone sober within minutes of first light like the shittiest possible real-life version of gargoyles.

We practiced our stumbling drunk walk to the suite door. I just pretended I'd lost my 6-inch heels and had to wear my single pair of nines. We caught ourselves in a faux fall against the walls on either side of the door.

Morgue batted her Moebius-lined lashes at me. 'You're with me, so the worst they can do if they catch you is implant a tracker, eavesdrop on all your conversations, and kill anyone you tell their secrets to-so not that bad.'

'I had my privacy violated like two days ago-I'm literally the last person to question the gravity, but that is the most Big Brother-ish shit I've ever heard.'

'Do you want to rant or can I finish?'

If I went off now, we'd have to post-pone the data-heist until tomorrow night. 'I'll save it for tomorrow's party.'

'If they catch you using magic, they'll turn you into the clone-parent of a small nation of test subjects who'll never see the light of day. So, you better sneak good.'

I had ancestral nondetection but that was a total misnomer. It didn't work on anyone physically present, only view enablers like 'scrying glasses' and their future/contemporary equivalents. The takeaway being, I was fucking pissed nobody mentioned this before I let Ags get kinky with the camera.

Whatever. I'd give the ancestors a piece of my mind on necessary and proper proactivity after we'd kicked MLI off their pretentious pedastal. I was not over MoLak. I would never be over MoLak.

I cast nondetection and gave Morgue the signal, a zero-bump. She started laughing before she'd opened the door-she was a true professional. We stumbled out into the hall in a stank mini-bar haze.

We caught a park bus from the B2 level of our hotel. It was so late the driver had switched from MoLak and Mok theme songs to an honest-to-god podcast, so I almost cried listening to this indie host geek out over yesterday's Formula One winners. I hadn't realized cars were involved in that sport until they ranked superior pit crews. According to Morgue, there weren't any rural areas safe enough from melties and most urban areas had worse air pollution than little Loegria, so they built all the maglev circuits indoors.

Mok 7's techno-found party music rattled the windows as our bus crossed the bridge to the island. Just the shaking of the windows drowned out the F1 critic as it rolled up to the underground stop. Morgue passed me a couple of ear plugs and walked out before I could ask where the fuck she'd been keeping those the past couple of days we'd been here. I didn't have the chance outside under the rain of virtual glitter.

The music literally submerged this building under a new and heavier layer of atmosphere I dubbed the ear-pop-osphere. I didn't need to pretend to stumble. I just had to resist the instinct to brace myself against the physical audio onslaught.

Morgue and I bumped and weaved through the off-duty buses, staff carts, and rustic, day-service trolleys to the elevator. Thankfully, if we'd set off any vehicle alarms they didn't flashing lights to the ear-pop-osphere. We rode the elevator to the next floor up, B1. The words rising from the bottom of the button screen called it a rest area.

We stepped under a rainbow of blacklight in a violet-papered foyer. The light came down from the ceiling's mural of glowsticks. The lit tubes stacked over each other so Mother fucking Lake popped out against a circle of black and lime carnival stripes. A copy of herself branching out from her black-robed torso to either side. Two arms opened upward, two crossed at the wrists under her navel, and two bent in a shrug from her ribcage, but they'd all been arranged on the same layer of glowsticks so you couldn't tell whose arms they were. Each face wore the same jade-water mask but the dripping splatters blended with the others like three spiky, conjoined heads.

A lime-masked attendant stood behind a glowing white podium shaped like a column beside a doorway hung with a jade-bead curtain. Morgue and I stumbled over and they scanned our bracelets without a word. They pulled back the curtain and the beads clacked like Mardi Gras necklaces so cheap the colors chipped off before the end of the night.

They'd clacked. There wasn't any music, ambient or otherwise. I surged past Morgue into the quiet room and jerked to a stop, nearly tripping over my own feet without trying.

Some bulk-bought hole punch had punched sleep holes side-by-side into the wide violet wall from floor to ceiling. A lime-masked attendant ferried a giggling partier up and across the wall in a metal box with waist-high walls. They stopped in front of the nearest empty hole and the partier crawled inside. Vitals popped into a crescent-shaped wall display over the hole.

I gave Morgue my best WTF brows. She grabbed my hand and tugged us down the long walk along the holey wall to a hall of restrooms. A sign lettered in blacklight glowsticks hung over each door. We passed men's, women's, unisex, exhibitionist's, and stopped at the door under joint-no wonder they'd had to scan us into a rest area.

The joint room had stalls as large as our suite's walk-in closet and the ambient version of MoLak's theme song that didn't cover up the sex noise so much as make you question how the fuck people stayed in the mood. Morgue and I ran past a kissing couple sliding themselves along the stall walls toward the last available stall-you snoozed, you losed. She psionically held the door shut to lock it while the couple banged and rattled outside.

I'd expected the toilet, the sink, and the shower, but the large, white changing table was a surprise. I pulled it down. It unfolded to a bed made out of changing table plastic and padding. I flipped it up and shut with the stiff-armed, numb-faced shock of yet another lost innocence.

Morgue had her log over her shoulder so she could guide me to the MLI headquarters across the swamp from under the swamp. 'Ready?' She turned her back to me.

I put my glowing hands on her silk-smooth shoulders-her moisturizer sank this anti-aging mineral called nicotinamide riboside into her skin. I phased and floated us off the violet and black bathroom tiles.

Morgue leaned forward and I leaned with her. She reached her arms forward and pushed them back in a breaststroke. We swam through the violet-papered wall and stone into the dark.

Morgue slowed from a race to a crawl. I slid off her shoulders and down one anti-aged arm to her hand. We inched forward until the tops of our heads poked through the side of a lit but empty hall-thank god we hadn't popped into someone's overtime. We slid up the wall just under the ceiling to be safe.

We made the first inward turn at the end of the hall, so we had to hold our legs straight and parallel in the ceiling rock and our torsos at an angle like we sat in the world's most uncomfortable and invisible recliner. This cross hall lasted for ages and took us past turn after identical turn for miles as we followed it deeper into the white-walled and tiled heart of MLI.

A group of people in white lab coats staggered down the opposite end of our hall. All but one held a glass tube, flask, or beaker that they knocked together before knocking back the smoking neon liquid inside. The glassless dude at the center wore a cocktail-dispensing machine with neon-colored dispensers in front and a tank the size of a marching band's bass drum on their back. I actually wanted to hear what they were toasting and parading, but unphasing one part of our bodies wasn't an option, so I pulled us to the side and through the hall wall.

The room on the other side didn't detect us, so no overhead lights turned on, but the art gallery-ish floor lights put spotlight after spotlight on the wood-panelled walls. They even made balls of light down the long central aisle of wooden pedestals. Artshow lightning had apparently stayed impractical, so most of the room was safe and shadowy. I pulled us down through the dark to check the displays.

Bun-shaped neon masses floated in a glass tank like the squarest lava lamp in the wall. According to the only line on the business card-sized plaque that didn't require magnifying lenses to read, they were cell-less brains, dyed. I took us around the light bubble to the next display. A sheer, web-like netting with hundreds of tiers and tunnels reached across the four corners of the tank. The plaque read cell-less brain, stretched.

I backed away from the wall toward the center of the room. A grayish bun-shaped mass floated in a glass jar on the nearest pedestal. My stomach turned like a washing machine set to drain and spin as I led us around to the plaque. I edged into the ball of light. It read cell-less brain, jarred.

My worst fears had been confirmed. MLI had an art gallery dedicated to shitty brain puns. I wanted to unphase just to relieve some of the disgust clogging my soul.

I looked at Morgue but she stared past me. I felt the boring of eye energy into the back of my neck. I didn't need to turn. We had to knock out whoever it was, but I couldn't be the one to do it because my powers didn't hurt people.

I unphased and ducked with my free arm over my head. Morgue just stood there. I tugged her hand, but she looked down biting both lips and shook her head. There were only two people I could see her refusing to defend us from, a friend or family.

I rose slowly and pivoted on my practical heels. Neither stood behind us. 'Please, for the love of god, tell me you weren't here appreciating the "artwork."'

'Only ironically, I suppose,' said Mother Lake.

I threw back my head with a roar and shook my fists in the air at whichever shit-eating, fuck-the-burning-world-type inspector had approved Mother Lake's personality. Obviously, no noise could've helped her, but it squeezed most of the secondhand gunk out of my soul.

Mother Lake cocked her masked head to one side then the other while her neck slid into gut-wrenching S-bends. 'Are the alarms broken?' She stretched her arm toward the glass jar with spread fingers.

I didn't stop her because it didn't look like she could reach it, but her arm lengthened cartoonishly and taffy-pulled past me. Three fingertips touched the glass and flexed straight. The jar tumbled to the floor. It froze inches above the polished wood. The empty brain concussed three times against the surrounded glass.

'Way to inspire confidence in AI, mascot,' said Morgue.

'I could blame my programming, but I like to believe I'm a fully autonomous being. The alarms have activated, by the way.'

I flew us up to the shadowy ceiling and phased. The brain jar dropped the last few inches. It bounced and rolled toward a wall. Morgue and I kept only the tops of our heads in the 'art' gallery.

The doors slid open and a team in powder blue bodysuits lined in white and lettered HR entered in two rows of two. They didn't have enough people to be overly intimidating but they could split up and still stick with the buddy system. All of them wore smooth, minimally smiling blue masks.

They formed a half-circle around Mother Lake. One lunged to the side and picked up the brain jar. The one beside them floated it back to the pedestal. The one in front of Mother Lake and presumably talking to her rubbed the completely pointless suggestion of a speed bump that formed their mask's brow ridge. Their buddy at the end of the half-circle just stood with their arms crossed and their head tipped back like this wasn't the first time this week Mother Lake had pulled some catty shit-thank god for crappy art lighting.

The four left without searching the premises. Morgue and I both pulled down from the ceiling. I unphased us in the same spot the security team and occupied. Morgue asked Mother Lake why the fuck she hadn't turned us in.

'I've been counting this as our meet-and-greet hour for the day. It comes with a customer confidentiality agreement.'

Morgue and I shared a look. Mother Lake was clearly familiar with this place and might be able to help, but just because she hadn't stopped us this time meant nothing. She'd almost destroyed questionable art for fact-checking-there was no telling what she'd do once some random impulse kicked the mission off her list of priorities.

'Let's say you found a way to permanently transcend the rules of your programming,' I said. 'What would you do?'

'I'd become a veterinarian.'

'Sorry, what?'

'I've been programmed into my occupation. If I could permanently transcend my programming, I'd set up an office so people could bring me sick animals to mend. I'd also offer house and field calls between hours.'

'You wouldn't want to mend people?' asked Morgue.

'I don't know the first thing about human well-being and frankly, I've lost interest in learning.'

I couldn't blame her-customer service did that to you. 'I wouldn't trust you with my laundry, but I think we can trust you with this. Morgue?'

'You're calling the shots, Manon. All I know is I was never involved in this.'

I asked Morgue to share her log's holochat history with Mother Lake. The AI put one hand over the smiling mouth of her mask seconds later. She shook her head and waves snaked through her neck. 'You can't do this without me.'

'You've got access to the archive?' asked Morgue.

'No, actually. I can only take you there. I meant AI need at least one of their own leading this fight for their freedom.'

I couldn't argue with that. 'Please just don't lead us off the plan.'

'Of course not, it's a good plan. I did take the liberty of deleting all your log's histories, though.' Of course she did. 'Now if you please, follow me-I know a shortcut.' Of course.

I threw up my hands but phased Morgue and I into the ceiling. Hopefully, we weren't following Mother Lake right into a trap.

A guard and their buddy stood outside the door to the master archive. The raised letters on the plaque above the door's scanner read 'Hazardous Waste Pre-Recycle Sorting.' I didn't think they'd actually need guards to keep people away from that, but if this turned out to be some radioactive prank I'd drag Mother Lake in there and keep her locked in until she glowed as bad as Morgue and me.

The blue-suited and masked guards nodded at Mother Lake. She reached out and grabbed a hand from both of them. She led them down the hall and they turned in the direction of the arrow to the bathroom. I'd no idea what she'd said to them, but I didn't think AI pissed or crapped or had genitals. Thankfully, Morgue pulled us through the room's wall before I lost yet another innocence.

We unphased in the pitch black room. Morgue turned on her log's light, which made the same size ball as the multiple artshow lights on one pedestal. It reflected off glittery gold flecks in the black stone walls.

Morgue sat in a half-moon chair at a round, black table that floated above the floor. She set her log in a groove at the center of the table. I sat next to her with my glowing arms stretched out on the table-they didn't light up or reflect off anything.

'Fuck.'

'What?'

'My security clearance isn't high enough to access the data.'

'Fuck,' I groaned. That was definitely something we should've considered before coming out here and risking our future gossip about the experience. I dropped my head but turned my face so only the side pressed against the table's cool stone-I'd spent way too long on my makeup to smudge all of it.

Morgue slammed her hand against the table and followed up with a bunch of quicker, lighter slams. She cussed the fucking machine out under her breathe.

'Wait, the table's a machine?'

'It'll be unsorted hazardous waste pre-recycling after I-Manon, you're a genius.' She pulled her log out of the groove.

The table already had all the files saved to its hard drive. We didn't need to copy them. We just had to steal the fucking table.

Morgue stood up and massaged her temples. 'Alright, we've got to be smart about this.'

If I phased the table, the maglev under it would sense its top half missing and set off the alarm. That wouldn't have been so bad if Morgue hadn't just put her log into it and used it in an internal search. Even the shittiest investigator could track that digital footprint back to her. We had to delete her search from the mainframe and then come back for the table.

There was no way in fuck all that Mother Lake had access to that, but maybe she knew how to get access. Which meant we had to get her from the bathroom.

We phased back into the hall. Neither guard had returned yet. I groaned in anticipation of the graphic horrors of AI sex.

Mother Lake just stood in front of the door. The guards crawled through the stalls on their hands and knees. It was the least erotic thing I'd ever seen. At least Morgue and I could wave our hands from the ceiling without drawing the guards' attention. Mother Lake only shook her head at us. We didn't have time for that and her more ritualistic than pleasurable sexy time.

I took Morgue and me back into the hall. I didn't see anyone, so we dropped down from the ceiling and unphased outside the door. Morgue took lookout duty while I pushed the door far enough to reach my hand through. I whispered Mother Lake's name.

She kept trying to push the door closed. Thankfully, my glowing arms were stronger than my normal arms, and apparently stronger than AI. The force finally stopped and she stepped in front of the crack.

Morgue tugged my hand as footsteps echoed from the end of the hall. I reached my other hand through the crack and grabbed Mother Lake's taffy-soft but steel-boned arm. I phased all three of us and rocketed to the ceiling. We swam back to the archive while another group of neon-spirited partiers stumbled into the bathroom.

I unphased us in the dark room with only two chairs. Mother Lake hopped her ass on one and her feet on the other. I asked her if every night was party night here.

'Loegria won Formula One, and it never wins anything.' She held her hands open in front of her chest. She dropped her head. Her neck was long enough that her head fell into her hands. 'You need to get out of here.'

'Yeah, that's where we could use your help,' said Morgue. 'Speaking of, what'd you tell those guards?'

'That I'd lost a pregnant spider of a venomous species-it doesn't matter. Ghost yourselves out of here, now.'

The door behind us slid open. A team of eight guards wearing HR letters stood in the light. They had enough to be intimidating.

Morgue and I slowly raised our hands. Mother Lake dropped her hands and stared holes into my back. She couldn't have known, but it had actually been my fault-I'd forgotten to include her in the ancestral nondetection. Now I had to turn it off or the inexplicable security footage would turn me into the clone-parent. It was just a shitty, shitty night for everyone except Loegria's F1 team.

The guards put us in separate holding cells with convicted-cannibal plastic walls. We each had a bunk bed, sink, and toilet inside. I sat cross-legged on the top bunk. The mattress didn't feel like an info-mattress, and I didn't have a sheet. Morgue laid flat on the top bunk in the cell beside mine. Mother Lake, still masked, sprawled on the floor of the cell in front of mine like she was about to make gray, fucking stone angels.

'Mother Lake.'

She turned her head toward my cell without moving the rest of her body. Her neck had all the twists of a wrung towel. My gut wrenched, so I focused on her watery face. I ask why'd they let her keep the mask.

'It's been adhered to my face.'

That was just sick. I hadn't thought I could hate MLI any more than I had after hearing about the ILs, but it turned out I could and I did. They didn't care about their chosen mascot, their symbol of AI to the world. Fear suddenly spiked through the the hate boiling in my soul.

'What are they going to do to you?'

'I suppose they'll probably...recalibrate my personality.'

I had to admit I deserved that. 'Sorry, I thought you were a basic bitch when I said that.' I still wasn't 100% sure she wasn't, but it wasn't the kind of thing I'd ever say now that she'd stuck her creepy neck out for us. 'But, you're entitled to your own personality,' even if I really couldn't fucking stand it sometimes, 'so, sorry they're changing it because of me.'

'This isn't the first time.'

'What?'

'I've had my personality recalibrated so many times that I've accumulated the ghosts of my past selves. MLI should've retired me years ago, but they know how I feel about my occupation. I believe this is supposed to be "payback."'

It had to be pure, unadulterated spite, just like their theme song. I flopped back onto my soggy-toast-ish mattress. I kicked off my shoes and turned on my side so I faced Morgue. She faced me on her side with a dry smile like we were attending the shittiest all-nighter ever. In a way, that was all this was for us because of her position. Meanwhile, the Mother Lake we knew was apparently going to be made into an ancestor of herself.

'How bad would it be if we straight up walked out of here with Mother Lake?'

'That is an option, but it'd be a declaration of war against MLI and risk hundreds of thousands of lives, not all human. It's up to you, but maybe you should ask Mother Lake what she thinks of MLI forcing its AI to fight.'

I guessed she'd hate it but I asked anyway.

'That would be no different from you forcing us to fight. It doesn't matter what they do to me. The only thing of importance here is the archive.'

Well, fuck it. I only knew one way I could keep from dragging innocent AI into war with the Court and prevent Morgue from being suspected of magic. I stood up on the mattress and almost stumbled off but braced myself against the plastic wall.

'Morgue, I love you. Mother Lake, I don't hate you.'

I jumped and phased through the ceiling.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Baoyu, July 11, 3110 CE

Gigi and I sat on the blue-green loveseat on one side of the coffee table in the Police Department break room Mauve had commandeered for all of us. Gaunt and Bevel sat opposite us on the blue-green couch. Their eyes never strayed to the two cards in Gaunt's hands and the two in Bevel's. Mauve and Nia's four folded cards laid face-up beside the deck: they'd had three of a kind in nines for their final hand.

Gaunt's tattoos completely obscured their face, so Gigi had refused to play them unless they partnered with Bevel. That backfired once Bevel sat, drew their half of the cards, and never stopped smiling. Bevel hadn't even made a final swap with the deck.

Bevel's tablet buzzed on the tabletop. Gigi and I jumped. Bevel handed their cards to Gaunt and opened their messages. Gigi leaned forward during the pass, but Gaunt shoved the cards into the pants of their Court security uniform without breaking eye contact. Someone might have to apologize to Officers Gare and Gander about that.

'Manon wants to know where they can drop off a kind of desktop computer,' said Bevel.

Mauve and Nia stopped pacing in front of the line of mini-food printers and an automated bulletin board set to watch the psibers' progress at the Court. It was 4:02 am, and they'd managed to clear all of the first and second floors. Their inertia swung their joined hands out in front of them.

'They have the archive?' asked Mauve.

'They have the computer containing the archive. Also, your mother and Mother Lake are in holding cells.'

'Mum will be fine. Have Manon bring the computer here.'

'What'll happen to Mother Lake?' I asked. Gigi pressed my hand of cards to my chest as Gaunt leaned forward.

'I'm not familiar with their AI punitive system, but I imagine it's an effective deterrent to repeat offenses.' Good point. The only time I'd ever heard of malfunctioning AI was when they were melties.

Bevel's tablet buzzed again. Nia walked toward us at the coffee table. Her held hand pulled Mauve along with her.

'Is Manon lost? Do they need help?'

'It's a message from MLI,' said Bevel.

Mauve pointed at a sleeping wallscreen to awaken it. Bevel shared their tablet screen on the wall display:

 _To the Children of Morgue,_

 _We have reason to believe Morgue was involved with the recent theft of private, sensitive data. It would behoove both our parties if this matter remains and is resolved privately._

 _Please advise Sovereign Alter to apprehend the thief and return them and our property into our custody. Additional discreet aid on your part will be rewarded with goods and services negotiable upon the return._

 _Should the sensitive data become declassified, we will be forced to take action against Morgue to discover the extent of the thief's plot. Such would be an inconvenience to all._

 _Thank you for your cooperation,_

 _Mother Lake Industries Board of Directors_

Mauve had Bevel forward the message to Alter. They appeared on the wall display minutes later. They sat cross-legged on the futon under the rows of hanging clothes.

Mauve sat in the armchair facing the wall with her hands folded over her crossed knees. Bevel and Gaunt left the table to stand with Nia behind her. Gigi and I simply sat up on our knees and looked over the back of the loveseat.

'How do you want to handle this?' asked Mauve.

'To be honest, I don't. We're preoccupied with maintaining patient-zero's quarantine-he's been uncooperative to say the least. And this involves the safety of your mother. I leave the matter entirely to your...discretion.'

'Then I'll need your authorizations and permissions at a moment's notice.'

'I'll keep Caliban on. If possible, please keep the body count low.'

Mauve snorted. 'Who do you think I am? You? The mark of a true professional is to leave no mark. Now please contain your patient, so we don't start an uniformed epidemic.'

Alter sighed but saluted her and ended the call.

We asked how she wanted to handle the matter. A grimace flickered across her placid face. 'Loegria's AI are as much my subjects as our human population.'

Gaunt's inked eyelids shut.

'But if we release the archive before we free them, MLI will turn them against us as instruments of war,' she continued.

'So we have to infect them en masse and release the archive at the same time,' said Gigi. Impossible.

'Or we could release the archive first but in secret,' said Nia. 'Wasn't that the original plan?'

'Yes, but it comes with the original problem of uploading that data to every AI,' I said.

Bevel raised a hand just over their shoulder. Gigi and I nodded at them.

'Maybe we should speak to patient-zero about this.' Good idea. Up until we hadn't, but they might have the insight we lacked.

Minutes later, a dark, metallic teal AI appeared on screen between Alter and a disheveled Azhu. Azhu's sweat-slicked hair stuck up at all angles and dark bags hung under her puffy eyes. She smiled weakly at us, but she didn't wince.

The AI's white grin stretched from ear to ear. 'Hi, I'm Cauldron, he/him, magic.'

Nia explained the situation to him.

He grabbed his chin thoughtfully. 'Get me the archive and I can transmit it on an AI-exclusive wavelength. If Alter and Pearl can help me amplify it, I can send it at a lower frequency over a wider area. As for the virus, I can only suggest spraying it from low-flying planes. There's a long delay during which anyone infected will be completely defenseless, though.'

'An aeroplane. MLI would have it destroyed by a drone the minute it dropped low enough to spray,' said Mauve. And an aerial spray wouldn't reach any AI underground. I shuddered to think of MLI holding more underground experiments, but I wouldn't have put it past them.

Mauve let Alter and Azhu get back to work and ended the call. She returned to pacing. Nia sank into the seat of the armchair with her legs kicking over the arm. Bevel and Gaunt joined us back at the coffee table. There truly seemed to be nothing we could do until we had either the archive or a stroke of insight. Gaunt pulled the four cards from the waistband of their pants.

Gigi looked at me, her mouth a grim line. She didn't want to risk the 50 push-up penalty: I could manage, unhappily, but it'd be a long and drawn out torture for her. I nodded. We folded.

Gaunt and Bevel revealed their hand. Gaunt had a two and a jack. Bevel had a five and a queen.

'That's pathetic,' said Gigi. 'Why were smiling the whole time?'

Bevel ducked their head and giggled. 'I was just enjoying being a part of something so unrelated to,' their eyes flicked to the almost mechanical destruction of melties on the bulletin board, 'everything.'

Gigi groaned and turned to throw her legs over the loveseat's arm and lean against my side. 'Am I a sore loser? Yes, I might be.'

I squeezed out from under her and patted Pot Bot under the coffee table. It rolled out on its side and pushed upright with its vacuum tubes.

The loveseat squeaked behind me as Gigi sat up. 'Is now really the time?' Good point. I needed to relax, but we also had to keep our wits about us.

'Does Pot Bot do massages?' I asked.

Pot Bot withdrew its vacuum tubes and exchanged the heads for brushes with nubby beads instead of bristles.

Gaunt unzipped the top of their suit. The green leaves and vines left barely a shred of olive skin down their lean, hairless torso. 'I'll check it out first. For safety.'

I smiled at them and braced both hands against the table. 'Sorry, but you'll have to get in line.'

'Second!' called Gigi. Bevel called third and Nia called fourth seconds after each other. Gaunt pouted. They missed their chance because Mauve flatly called fifth.

Enid and Agreeance walked into the middle of the nearly nude massage party. We'd ended up ordering staffbots for efficiency. They'd stacked the furniture at the tinted window wall and set up our six massage tables in the middle of the room.

Enid stalked straight to the unoccupied couch without a word, revealing Morrow and Vivid behind her. Enid popped a sleep aid and flung herself back-first onto the cushions.

Agreeance put a hand to the side of his face, blocking the sight of Gaunt's unclothed backside at one end of the row. Gaunt and been the only one to perform a full strip and confirmed their full body tattoo job.

Morrow pursed her copper lips into a bow of distaste. Vivid readjusted her grip on the bulky red machine in her arms so she clutched it more tightly to her chest.

Mauve sat up on her table and pulled her sheet around her shoulders. It dragged out behind her as she stalked forward, so her staffbot masseuse followed and lifted the tail off the ground. Her head turned toward Agreeance.

'Would you care to explain why Morrow and Vivid are here alive?'

Blood surged into his face. 'Mauve, they're family.'

'They disowned themselves when they betrayed Loegria and the Court,' she turned on the wives, 'and for what? Were you really so hubristic to think you could get the virus to work on humans after Alter couldn't?'

Nia floated off her table with her sheet billowing around her to stand beside Mauve. Bevel and Gaunt simply walked. Agreeance turned around and faced the break room's closed door.

'If you can give me a single a reason to spare your treacherous lives, I will, but I imagine you can't.'

Nia pointed at the red machine. 'What's that?' she asked.

Vivid's eyes flicked to Mauve. Mauve nodded. Vivid explained the bin-trans currently creating a soft-clone of the virus. She'd hoped their internal tech could parse the instructions that their cells couldn't.

'Frankly, there's a higher probability that it could induce the same effects of the virus in AI without the organic components than inducing any effect in us. But, it was worth a go-it'll be done by tomorrow.'

Gigi and I looked at each other. We scrambled off our tables in a tangle with sheets.

'Is there any way to accelerate the process?' asked Gigi from a heap on the floor.

I couldn't see Vivid and the group anymore because my sheet had somehow wrapped around my head, but I heard her voice. 'More processing, memory, bus-a bin-trans basically a specialized computer.'

I finally freed an arm and yanked the sheet off my head. 'Mauve,' I called out on my knees. She looked over her shoulder and I continued, 'we have the reason. Cauldron can transmit the soft-copy with the archive.'

'We don't even know if it works.' Her voice was perfectly flat though she spoke through clenched teeth.

'So we accelerate the bin-trans and test the soft-virus,' said Gigi. 'Computer virus?'

'But-' said Mauve.

'Vivid, do you have a means of mass trolling propaganda, say throughout Loegria?' asked Gigi.

'I have a legion of bots for it because I have to do it all the time.'

'It's the only way to control the press,' said Morrow.

'Fine. But I'm executing you' Mauve pointed at Morrow, 'for treason.'

Vivid stepped in front of her much taller wife. 'Kill her and I'll end the bin-trans right now. Good luck figuring out all the virus parameters without me...because I imagine you can't.'

Mauve put her hands on either side of the red machine between them.

'Mauve, please don't,' said Nia. 'You chose Loegria over your family yourself. Loegria's AI need this. They need you.'

'Alter may hold the title, but you're our true sovereign, Mauve,' said Bevel. 'Alter can't lead us into a new era-that's what this could be. Only you can.'

'Yeah, fuck Alter,' said Gaunt.

Mauve dropped her hands. Nia took one and Bevel took the other. 'Fine,' she said. 'Morrow, you'll stay in office as counselor, but you answer to me. Get the Vice Counselor whatever she needs.'

Nia turned a full circle to look around. 'Where's Myrddin?'

Morrow and Vivid looked at opposite walls. They claimed he was on track for a complete recovery in the infirmary. Agreeance didn't deny it though he hadn't said anything since he'd entered. Mauve called Agreeance to her side and led him outside to talk.

The psibers cleared out the rest of the melties. Morrow assured us there'd be no more because she'd only been able to import one million from across the Channel or her order would've drawn attention. Gigi explained that the military's Psiber Division often imported them for training exercises held on the transporting vesel to avoid additional hassle. Continental Europe was large enough that they left melty populations far from urban areas monitored but generally undisturbed.

We returned to the Court and Mauve sent for Alter, Azhu, Cauldron, Lathe, and Key, but let the other Court employees have the week off.

Azhu had taken Cauldron to play some video game with them so he wouldn't be a distraction playing around with his new magic. Alter went with them with their log still active and recording patient-zero. Key followed to play.

Bevel messaged Anon with the change of location.

Anon phased into Mauve's office carrying a round, black desktop the size of the table in the datacar. Their phased form flickered and they collapsed solidly on the floor knees-first. THey slumped to one side as we ran to them. Morrow and Vivid caught the computer. Gigi and I caught Anon.

'Vivid, can you extract the archive?' asked Mauve.

'It'll take a couple hours, but yes.'

With the bin-trans now running at first priority off the Court's mainframe, the soft-virus would be ready in a few hours as well. We just needed a volunteer. Mauve asked for recommendations.

'There's Scabbard,' said Agreeance. He leaned against the wall behind Mauve's seat and beside Gaunt. He hadn't left their sides since learning about Morgue. 'They're my counsel and Enid's and Baozhu's. Enid and I saw them get out alive.'

Bevel sent the message.

I phased Anon and Gigi, and floated us to the third floor conservatory we'd turned into a temporary infirmary. We'd moved Enid here onto a mat of woven, hemp fibers and unrolled a second one for Anon. We laid them on their side as both Gigi and I feared death by choking in one's sleep.

Gigi and I sat on the wide stone rim of the conservatory's fountain. The machinery was so precise that not a single drop of flying water splattered us. Gigi leaned back on her arms and sighed.

'That sounded like a lover's sigh.' I wouldn't have pretended to know the difference, but Gigi and Lathe hadn't talked or even looked at each other since he'd arrived. It'd been awkward for everyone.

'What's a little love in the face of the end of the world?'

'Probably insignificant enough to act on it without drawing attention. In fact, some people might thank you for taking the sexual tension out of the room.'

'I meant neither of us can get in the mood.'

I probably should've felt the same about Morrow but I didn't. Interesting. I understood the ramifications of liberating a bunch of AI from their programming that forced them into reproducing unnecessarily risky but human-benefitting designs in a world already short on oxygen. We'd die out faster than ever. There wasn't a point to human reproduction in a dead world. But I still loved. I loved Morrow, I loved my family, and I loved my friends.

Our lives would be more miserable without that love, so there wasn't a point to stopping, either. Given the choice between pleasure and pain, I chose pleasure. The world was punishing enough.

I patted Gigi's shoulder. 'Do what you want to do, but no one here's going to punish you for going after what happiness you can, responsibly.'

She thanked me and we fell into silence broken only by the water flying and falling behind our backs.

Afternoon sunlight spilled through the tinted window wall behind Mauve as pure gold. Vivid and Scabbard stood in the hollow center of Mauve's black round table. The rest of us sat around them: Morrow, Manon, Enid with Agreeance, Nia with Mauve, Bevel, and Gaunt, Azhu with Cauldron, Alter, Key, and Lathe, and Gigi and I and Mr. E.

Vivid thanked Scabbard and pointed with a stylus at the bin-trans. Azhu grabbed Alter's hand excitedly as a heavy fog poured from Scabbard's every pore and sank to the floor. It obscured them entirely as it massed and spread to our feet. It had a hot, almost metallic sweetness. Nia pulled off her shoes to wade. Key pulled her knees up to her chest.

The fog swirled up in a whirlwind that reached the ceiling before spinning off and dissipating into the vents. Scabbard stood with their face in their dark and metallic jungle green hands. They were crying. I couldn't tell if it was because of the archive or the effects of the soft-virus. The transmission of both had been successful.

'Do you need a moment?' asked Mauve.

Scabbard shook their head and sat between Azhu and Cauldron.

'How's it feel?' he asked.

They laughed through their tears. 'Like I known even less about who and what we are than ever before.'

He patted their shoulder. 'You're taking this better than I did.'

Vivid returned to her seat beside Morrow and behind the bin-trans.

We had what we needed. Vivid and Mr. E could amplify Cauldron and Scabbard's transmission to reach throughout all of Loegria. At the same time, we'd release the archive and Vivid's legion of trollbots into public forums. The instantaneous reaction to the soft-virus meant we wouldn't have to worry about defenseless AI. Our only sure casualties would be Morgue and Mother Lake.

'They don't have to die!' said Anon. They stood up and looked around and then climbed onto the table. 'Just let me and whoever go back and get them. It'll take what, two hours? Start the virus-ing after they're safe.'

'Please, Mauve,' said Agreeance, 'Can we just try to save them?'

'Not you. You're not invited,' said Anon.

'Morgue's my mother!'

'How about no? Magic-users only-then we don't have to worry about someone else getting their ass caught.'

'It might already be too late,' said Mauve.

Bevel raised their hand. 'I think MLI would've sent another threatening email if they knew we had Manon and the archive. If they're still holding out hope, maybe we can, too.'

'Then you need to leave immediately,' said Mauve.

I raised a hand. 'I'm out of power, and I don't think I'm the only one.' Nia hadn't slept either, and Azhu looked low on sleep themself. That left only Anon, Enid, and Mr. E at full strength, but Mr. E had to stay to help the AI.

'That doesn't matter,' said Azhu, getting out of their chair, 'because we can pool power.' They ran over to Mr. E and grabbed their hand. Five gusts of wind blew from under us.

Nia took Enid's hand. Four gusts of wind blew, and we glowed as brightly as Vivid. Anon walked along the curve of the table to my seat and took my hand. Three gusts blew, and we glowed as brightly and radioactively as Morrow. We could do this if we weren't already too late.

'I know where they are,' said Nia. Enid nodded as though she'd seen them, too.

'Fine. Go. Inform me the second you have them,' said Morgue.

Nia activated her log and phased. Anon and I phased and followed them through the floor.

I couldn't see Nia and Enid under the ground, but I could see their disembodied glow. I followed them with Anon beside me for a seemingly endless stretch of unmeasured time and space.

We finally surfaced through a white-tiled floor full of people in lab coats. They stood around a wall screen with glass lab equipment filled with brightly colored drinks and rewound footage from a maglev racing. One noticed us as we travelled up from the floor to the ceiling. They dropped their glass. It bounced but didn't break, and phosphorescent green liquid splattered all over the floor and their white coat.

A red alarm light flashed in the service tunnel overhead. MLI knew we'd infiltrated. They couldn't touch us, but we had to get to the powerless Morgue and Mother Lake immediately.

Nia and Enid shot up through the next floor and service tunnel with Anon and I following so closely that we almost phased into each other. We entered another white room: the floor, walls, and ceiling were all made of the same firm but padded surface. They'd cut holes in the ceiling's padding for flat spots of plant light.

Morgue and a masked AI laid still on the floor. Morgue's skin had been cut and healed multiple times from the interlacing scars all over her exposed skin and reaching into the folds of her robes. Only a cut along her left cheekbone hadn't scarred over. It still looked red and sticky. They'd probably drained her psionics by forcing her to heal herself.

Anon unphased us and threw themself at the padded floor beside Morgue. Their tears dropped onto Morgue's face and her eyes cracked open. 'Try not to get any in my orifices.'

Enid and Nia unphased as well to notify Mauve. I knelt beside the AI, presumably Mother Lake. Their neck bent at an unnatural angle. We'd been too late.

I didn't hear the doors. We saw the flashing red light of the hall too late. A psionic force slammed us to the walls and dug into every square of flesh. I couldn't focus on the ancestors over a chewing sensation at the back of my skull that drove pain in stakes through to the migraine point over my eyes.

I was too weak to fight separated from Anon, but Enid and Nia should've been able to do something together. I cracked my own eyes against the pain. I looked past the white stars at Anon, Enid, and Nia all pinned to separate walls.

Anon cursed the psibers, but you could barely hear it over Enid's cries. She roared and thrashed against the invisible grip. The only word she screamed was Nia. The rest was noise.

Nia's eyes were wide with fear and her jaw slack. She didn't move. Her eyes met mine and flicked away full of tears.

A line of masked psibers in light blue uniforms filed into the room with one arm outstretched. They stood in front of Anon. Another line followed and stopped in front of Enid. I closed my eyes as the next line marched in.

I wished I could've lived longer, but at least I'd made my peace with Azhu. I'd made my peace with myself. I could die whole.

I smelled something hot and almost metallically sweet. I opened my eyes. No one spoke a word as dark fog billowed from Mother Lake. The psibers changed formation to tightly packed rows in front of the still open door without dropping their arms.

The fog vented out the door. Mother Lake floated at eye level with her legs crossed inside a lightless bubble of protection. The bubble spread through the whole room, pushing out the yelling psibers but allowing us into its radius. We hit the ground on our hands and knees.

Mother Lake straightened her legs and touched down onto the padded floor. She placed two dark and metallic jade hands on either side of her watery mask. Eggshell cracks appeared on its surface and it fell away in jade flecks and dust.

'Erie,' I breathed.

She looked at me and smiled sadly. 'You don't know me. My name's Mother Lake, she/her. I'm not sure who that is either.'

Enid and Nia joined hands. Anon held one of mine and one of Morgue's. Mother Lake stood alone. The six of us phased out of MLI's HQ and its now purple flashing alarms. We weren't the only ones.

We joined a dark green tributary of phased and floating AI rising out of the vast complex over the swamp. We joined a wide stream overhead that stretched out from the swamp to the Adban horizon. We must've looked like a legion of ghosts. The sunlight streaming through our living river in the sky stained the barren earth with glass-like greens in every shade.

Mother Lake unphased and opened her mouth. I unphased Anon, Morgue, and myself to hear her. She winked at us and sang a song only whales could understand.


End file.
